Epilogue

For those that dont realise, I stopped playing WoW around three weeks ago. After two years, many hours and a shed load of fun I realised that I had had enough. The reasons are simple - Catreann and I have separated and with that the joy in something we shared was gone.

I tried to work through it but my heart really wasnt in it. I leave behind a lot of people I am very fond of but for now its over. Yesterdays post seemed a fitting final use for CSAHFs.

For those who dont know the context: http://www.thegoldqueen.com/blog-news/give-nsfw/

Kudos to Alyzande for her courage at this time.

Breevok

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Vendoring Enchanting Mats

OK Blizz, I aint happy...

Maelstrom Shatter

Enchanting

• Enchanting: Maelstrom Shatter Splits a Maelstrom Crystal into two Heavenly Shards. - Creates Heavenly Shard. Reagents: Maelstrom Crystal

Interesting - wont be bothering to stockpile Heavenly shards for 4.3 now then will I?

So where is all the corruption?

 

Lord Acton stated that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.".

I can't say I am a great man, and as of yet I don't see much corruption going on....

Lifes about to get rather interesting

Well it seems life is about to take a detour and wander off into the great unknown for a wee while. I am strapped in but have to admit to having a few nerves-a-quivering

Someone put me out of my misery....

..... does my crossbow still sound like a gun?

So where exactly should we be right now?

Raidings becoming an issue. And I think I've just worked out why. Its Deathwing's fault

Oooops careful!

I know... I shouldnt embaress people...and this isnt a Gevlon M&S post. I promise.

The PvP Bug...

I guess it happens to everyone in the end. But with a change in focus for me with WoW, it wasnt a huge surprise that I have turned my attention to PvP.

Looking for a bargain? Just visit a major city and pick up some trade spam.

This weekend I decided to help a guildie out who was desperate to buy a new trinket (Tsunami) for her priest. But I admit there were also non-altruistic reasons for doing it as well...

Casual Goblin, Casual Blogger

I turned a corner when I failed at quitting blogging. The realisation that I loved blogging and to stop because I was writing about something I was wasnt enjoying was foolish. Rather than stop I needed to change.

Oh bugger it!

I knew I'd fail at leaving. The voice in the back of my head told me I would, I refused to listen.

So after less than a week I'm back, not so much retracting my last post but accepting the fact I have a need to spout my thoughts, and CSAHFs is my outlet

Paradise By The Dashboard Light

A lyrics post :)

Flood? What flood?

 

Yesterday I ran my dailies on both Sardonica and Puraa. Puraa did her complete run through Hyjal and Firelands, Sardonica did the same plus his JC daily.

I'm not the only person doing this, evidenced by the number of people competing to heal up injured druids, or collect Magnolia's from the lava field. Its not surprising, 365 gear, patterns and achievements occur at every turn. But what affect is this having on the economy?

3....2....1.....Go!

So today is the day on Caelestrasz that, providing you ground out your Fireland dailies every day since 4.2 hit, you opened up your first vendor. Let the games commence...

A ponderous post on GKPs to reach 400

This is my 400th post on this blog. Its actually the 401st but I deleted a post a few weeks ago and we won't mention it again.

Generally my anniversary posts (103, 200 and 300) are fluffy feel good posts - however today's isn't quite so fluffy. I did a GKP run today - it wasnt a lot of fun. I tend to not like being in an abusive run and alas thats where todays GKP run ended up...

Want to buy at the best price possible? Surprisingly not...

I was chatting with a guildie last night following purchasing a new belt for Sardonica, who has finally hit honoured with the Avengers of Hyjal.

Mudgutzz sells Ebonsteel Belt Buckles as one of the ways he makes gold. He's not the biggest seller on Alliance/Caelestrasz but he sits in the top five suppliers. And he posed an interesting question which I fumbled around to find an answer for...

He shoots - he scores! The crowd goes wild....

Its interesting that ??? was the buyer but like I care.

The punt paid off :)

This is not the post you are looking for

I admit to being confused. Evidently everyone (and alas when I say everyone I mean Foo and Critical Goblin) is expecting me to roar out of my cave with some long detailed assassination of X, Y or Z - and quite possibly all three.

Taking a punt

In light of deleted comments on a Foo post I had to change my topic for the day. Struggling to think of something from the weekend to write about I decided to invest 40k this morning to hopefully make 10k.

GKP - Cata Stylee

I got a whisper around lunchtime. There was a GKP starting horde side - and was I interested? Damn right I was....

Request For Help - Help Me Kill A Bug

Dear Readers

I have never done this before but I am asking for a favour.

Yesterday MTRs was the victim of a hacked account. It happens, and in a week or so we will get all the stuff back that was taken from the guild bank. Its not a biggie.

However we did discover that there is a bug in the game currently that made the incident more serious than it should have been. Basically there is a way to reset a toons daily bank withdrawal allowance.

The account in question has the ability to take two items from each bank tab each day. However, by exploiting the bug, the hacked account managed to empty the bank. Roughly 40k worth of gear, flasks, mats etc were taken.

I have started a thread on the WoW forums but I am loathed to bump it. So I am asking that if anyone is inclined to respond to the thread it would be appreciated - I would hate for Blizzard not to take action on this exploit immediately.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2786568855

We have reported this in-game as well. For all GMs out there, be warned.

Regards

Breevok

4.2 - a time for reflection

Its been a busy week for us all I have no doubt. But with a weekend under our belts I feel we all have a better idea what 4.2 is all about and the trials and tribulations we have ahead. So I finally feel ready to give my impressions...

News Flash - Avengers of Hyjal Cloaks Disenchant

 

Whether this is a bug which will be fixed or whether its working as intended, the cloaks you can purchase for 212g50s when you hit friendly with the Avengers of Hyjal disenchant into maelstrom crystals.

Blizzard have therefore set a ceiling price on maelstroms... for now at least

Hey there 4.2! Come on in! Can I take your coat? Coffee? Tea?

So 4.2 arrives. Right on time. As expected.

*coughs*

Yeah I was ill. Sue me.

But after a week I am back at work and after fighting my inbox for five hours I'm having lunch and writing a blogpost.

When its all worth the effort...

Late last night I was listening to the cricket on the BBC website. Its not often that I get to listen to 'Test Match Special' from the other side of the planet so I am making use of every opportunity I get to satisfy my cricketing needs..

The match I was listening to was the third test match between England and Sri Lanki currently being held at the Rosebowl in Hampshire. English weather at the moment has meant that the match has had more rain delays than play, but that doesnt really matter. Test Match Special (TMS) carries on regardless - talking about anything cricketing whether there are a bunch of guys wearing white running around outside the commentary box or not.

"Oh goodness" I hear the readers cry! Breevok's being random again, AND talking about cricket. Yes it does happen occasionally but there is a valid reason this time related to the blog so give it a go...

Afraid? You should be....

 

In my last post I talked about someone creating a toon on a new faction to try and create wealth. Looking at it again I realise it was quite a generalised post, which often happens because I have fingers in many servers and the vast majority of my readers dont reside on the Caelestrasz server.

In conclusion to that post I recommended enchanting and inscription as the two professions I would take if I had a level 20 character sat on the opposing faction to my mains.

I stand by this but after a quick chat with my hordie friend last night I realised something I had failed to focus on in the last post - what to do if the faction/server you find yourself isn't an 'average' server? How do you still get the piece of the pie?

New to Stormwind? Just how does a goblin get started?

 

I recently got a mail on my horde toon. The evening before I'd picked up 100 volatile life for 8g, and a mail was in my inbox with a very polite request. It was from the seller of the volatile life who had, of course, meant to post the VLs for 8g each not 8g per 100.

Due solely to the polite request I sent him 500g. The next day I had a thank you mail and thought nothing more about it.

A few days later the same person posted a comment here thanking me. Alas it was against the post which is no longer exists, but around the same time I received an in-game whisper from a level one alliance toon. It turns out to be the same person.

When blogging goes bad!

 

I have blogged since September 2009. Almost 400 posts later and yesterdays post was the first I took down. Having reread this post I have decided to post it.

Just a simple message today...

I wrote a post. I decided not to publish. Instead this:

Now once again I find myself having to clarify something - because obviously some people don't read or if they do read they don't understand. I am nothing more than an officer in MTRs. Cat is my real life partner. She is also the GM of More Than Raids. In real life we are partners, in WoW she is my boss, and either acts on my opinions or doesn't. In WoW decisions made by her regarding the guild are hers.

Cat listens to all her officers. I have been overruled on several occasions.

On my blog, I am boss. The opinions are mine. They are not the opinions of MTRs nor of Catreann. They are mine and mine alone. The guildie that /gquit yesterday quit because of what I said - because of my opinion. Others that are upset with that person leaving the guild should be annoyed at me and not at the guild or Catreann. I don't know how I can be clearer on this point - hopefully this time people understand.

Guild Perk Bountiful Bags doesnt appear to be universal

My Guild More Than Raids is a level 25 guild and has beenf or a while. From a purely goblin persepctive I was most excited when we hit level 23 and received the Bountiful Bags bonus.

Now this is every goblins dream - especially to farmers and disenchanters - however from my observations I dont think its a universal bonus...

Where there's muck there's brass.

Meet Lumbricus terrestris, the Common Earthworm. Its a wonderful creature.

Moving from Auction House PvP to the real thing

Well what a few days its been. Hitting cap has bought a whole new mindset for me and I admit that I have been enjoying every minute, whilst muffling the voices that scream 'Stop Spending!'

*Watching the dust settle*

 

So I made it. 1,000,000 gold. Banked.

Now the fun times start, or at least thats what I thought would happen. But for reasons unknown I'm flat. Little joy, just relief. The jobs done, and I had it with a few days to spare before the end of May. It took 17 days to make the last 100k.

It is done!

 

More news soon(ish)

The solo glyph seller - a quick guide

Yesterdays post got a wee comment:

How do you go about making and buying all those glyphs every morning? Is it all done manually or do you have an addon that helps with either the buying or crafting (if not both)? 

I'll try and answer the question I think was being asked... but I may be wrong.

Before I moved my glyphs to horde I had three glyph sellers. Now I have Fringe doing the same job. Having a single glyph seller isn't as complicated as I had feared, even though the glyphs I sell take up nearly 11 Packs of Endless Pockets. So what I have found the best way to run the entire business through a single toon and what pitfalls are along the way?

The secrets in what you don't know you know

This is the Enigma machine used by the German's in the WW2. The code was considered unbreakable, but due to procedural mistakes, the allies (firstly the Poles and later the British) cracked the code.

Sometimes there are patterns in WoW - things you recognise, codes to be broken. Deciphering what you see, for the goblin, can be the difference between profit or loss.

People know I run experiments. Sometimes I run them on my home server, but often I poddle off to some unsuspecting server to test something. Sometimes things work other times they don't. Sometimes I blog about them, other times I don't.

But what interests me is when something happens and you recognise it because you've already seen it yourself months before. Or at least part of it. This gives you the ability to react quickly to compensate, which of course results in minimise losses or maximising profits.

One such incident happened today.

The battle for Frostmourne - do gold sellers influence a servers feel?

 

Frostmourne is a PvP oceanic server. It is part of the same battle group as Caelestrasz, but is far more progressed in terms of raiding. Whereas Cael only just dropped Nefarian HM this past week (congratulations to Crimson for that achievement) that guild is 8/13HM. In comparison, Frostmourne has two guilds 13/13 and 9 guilds either more advanced or achieved 8/13 before Crimson.

Because we share the same battle group Cael players do come across players from Frostmourne on a semi regular basis. Alas I dont know many people that think fondly of Frostmourne players, who generally appear to be arrogant, egotistical, self-centre elitists or put another way - wankers.

Now I am making broad generalisations here but the truth is, Frostmourne players do seem to be, on average, different from your standard Caelestrasz player.

But what about their economy? Does that differ too? I decided to investigate...

Spring cleaning

It's May. Late Spring. In the UK the lambs will frolicking, the gardens slowly moving into their prime. Of course I live in the Southern Hemisphere and its raining and cold and we are bedding in for winter. But however long I've lived here, a part of me always considers this time of year as Spring...

Changes to glyph research - an interesting comment from the most recent Ask The Devs...

Will you provide a way to speed up the acquiring of glyphs usually acquired through research and glyph books? Glyph books (Book of Glyph Mastery) are hard to come by now that people spend so little time in WotLK content.

Yes. We will be changing the discovery spells so they can teach all possible glyphs, and the books will simply provide a no-cooldown method to do the same thing.

Source - http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2098312569

Closing in on the big one million

I admit that I'm starting to daydream about life after the drive to one million gold. Having just cleared my mailboxes my total wealth is 906,750g give or take 5 silver and a few copper. The end is definately in sight, looming on the horizon getting ever closer with every passing hour. So what do I do then?

Swimming Through Treacle

Forgive me readers for I have sinned, its been 12 days since my last post.

The idea of confession always appealed to me, although I am not Catholic and in fact have no religious leanings at all. But I have felt guilty that I have abandoned this blog for almost two weeks without a word to my readers. But the time has come to put that right in typical Breevok fashion

Resistance is Futile

Finally I get some time to look at 4.1 and it struck me that the Borg have a lot to offer the WoW goblin.

”We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

*pops up for air*

Ack sorry - blame Yogscast

Hmmm that probably needs some explanation - Yogscast are a pair of Brits who do (amongst other things) YouTube videos of WoW.  Well thats how I first came across them - but they do videos of a wider range of gaming experiences as well - which is where I've been. Kinda.

Minecraft - your life is now over

After watching far too many Minecraft videos produced by the mad pair (Simon and Lewis) - Kat and I decided to bite the bullet and get ourselves the game. And for five days thats where we've been, playing multiplayer Minecraft learning every aspect of the game only to discover we've only just scratched the surface.

But this distraction hasnt completely dragged me out of WoW. So a few updates...

Maintaining the supply line

Many wars have been won and lost because of the control of supplies. As Napoleon once said "An army marches on its stomach" which was rather apt seeing as he lost more soldiers to starvation than to dying in battle.

From the Alexandra the Great in 320BC through to today's battles happening in Libya, making sure your troops have supplies of food, shelter and other essentials is the key to meeting the other goals of the fighting in the first place.

The logistics of protecting your supply chain and/or disrupting others supply chains has been a technique used to turn the tide of battle and historically there have been many examples of monumental swings in fortune - the classic snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

But what can we learn from this to apply to WoW? Well you'd be surprised...

Glyph'HORDE'Mas

When I opened my mail this morning on Fringe, I had 53 mails. Once they had cleared I was 7001g52s23g richer. Fringe first posted glyphs on the horde AH at around 4pm Sunday afternoon, 29 hours later she has made over 16k in sales, with the average sale price of the glyphs sold being approximately 114g after AH fees.

In short, I've made more in a day and a half selling glyphs Horde side than I would have done in 10 weeks on Alliance. The Fringe Experiment has paid dividends once again.

Fringetastic

Following a 'fuck it' moment, I made a decision on Friday night which resulted in some huge changes to my presence in the glyph market.

If the point of Moonvengence, Nevica and Ariob/s/t was to drive me from the glyph market then congratulations to you all I am no longer selling glyphs to alliance members of the Caelestrasz server.

You all wore me down and beat me - I could not take it anymore. One of the three sellers has been deleted entirely so the dismantling of the business has already progressed to a point where I can truthfully say that I could not re-enter the market even if I wanted to, as I no longer have any glyphs on my sellers. In fact of the 6000+ glyphs I had on Friday evening, not a single one remains which could be put up in competition to Moon et al.

Off to meet Terry Pratchett

Can't wait!

The evening starts with a general audience with the great man, and ends with a smaller event to which we have been invited.

I first met Terry in 1994 in Birmingham at a pub called The Red Lion. There were about 30 people there, which was rather odd because he'd written and release around 15 books from the Discworld series by that stage. I got to meet him personally that night through my Genetics Lecturer at Birmingham University - Jack Cohen. Terry and Jack later went on to co-author (alongside Ian Stewart) the very successful and informative 'Science of Discworld' trilogy of books.

I would not expect Terry to remember me - but I have always had the utmost respect for TP both as an author and more recently as an advocate for Alzeimers.

It seems rather surreal that 18 years later I will get to meet him again. I'm very excited. So sorry guys - good luck in BoT tonight but I have a fun evening organised with Terry.

Ook!

The Undermine Journal - does it see things that the rest of us cant?

We all know I love The Undermine Journal and have posted about it several times - here here here and here

But last night a friend who occasionally comments on this blog appeared to be urgently looking for me based on the number of messages I received when I logged on.

Upon talking a while we both agreed that TUJ was giving information that didnt make sense... and in fact was causing a little panic for my friend....

What to do when the market dies...

I only made 2k yesterday. there has been a lull across all the various markets I play in and I cannot see any immediate new opportunities to move into to rectify the situation. So what exactly do you do when this happens?