Tuesday 30 November 2010

The Mo' is dead, er, long live the Mo'?

IRL
It's the last day of November, and the last day of Movember. For those of you that don't know, Movember is a charity push for funds for Prostate Cancer, which kills one man every hour in the UK. To achieve this, kindly sorts, like yours truly, grow a moustache or 'Mo' from scratch on the 1st of November. In my case this meant shaving my trademark beard off. I haven't been entirely clean shaven for about 8 years. It felt odd. Many reacted to it, mostly negatively. However here I am at a paradox of sorts. Most people will shave theirs off tonight, and gain a sort of closure. I however will be leaving mine in place and simply allowing the rest of my old beard to return. This doesn't really give me closure, but it does remind me to go after the last few sponsors with my 'tache intact. Still, it's a good thing to do for charity, but it's ended on a damp squid.

WoW
Are you in the same void I am? Apart from a crazy pet taming push on my hunter, I've not done much. Ah, there wa the total waste of time that was recruiting for Malygos weekly, only to hbe the whole raid fall apart before the first spell was cast. Damn you unreliable tanks!!

Anyway, due to the Mrs working tonight, I'll log on for a bit. So looking forward to Cata now. I'll need to race change my Shammy to dwarf, and maybe RC my Druid to Worgen. I could do the former now, but I'm broke until the 7th. I may have to wait until the 8th as I suspect the Blizzard techies may be snowed under on the 7th - lol

I wish them well

Monday 29 November 2010

Pre-Cataclysm Void and Comedy Legend Dies and Arrrrgh Sunday Trading laws

IRL
Comedy legend Leslie Nielsen has died. What a loss! This man has made me laugh until my stomach muscles hurt and tears have run freely down my face. Such classic moments as pushing OJ Simpson down the steps in The Naked Gun; great moments of his trademark deadpan delivery: "Cigarette" "Yes, I know"; "Run him down to the station!", and "Al, you have something between your teeth" and the end credits to Police Squad with Leslie and Co pretending to be in a freeze frame shot with hilarious consequences. I've even had trouble writing this due to having fits of laughter.

Chrimbo Shopping - Had a spot of this at the weekend, and a shower of s**t it was, too. Olly Muirs, local boy and X Factor winner, was in Chelmsford turning on the lights. I've had issue with Chelmsfordites over the years, manly due to going through there everyday on the train to work. The train stops and suddenly the horde charge all remaining seats with gusto. I understand it, but I still don't like being aggressively shoved about the place. Their attitude seems one of belligerence, and I know Chrimbo shopping does this to all of us, but it seems to just make them worse. Throw in the Olly fans getting all over excited, and you have a recipe for a ruck. Add to that my good woman and our bored 3 year old boy and I'm blowing steam out of my ears and looking for exit strategies. The great foot note to this is not the people of Chelmsford, they are what they are, but the Sunday trading laws that mean the only decent exit from the scrum, M&S, was trying to lock it's doors onto a crowd trying to go through them. People pushing from behind and escape routes getting blocked makes for a powder keg. No, I'm not in favour of keeping the outdated Sunday trading laws in place. Yes, I think they should be repealed. It's the 21st century, get over it, Sunday is a day for B&Q and M&S, not CofE. I need to work 7 days sometimes, why can't everyone else man up and grow a pair.

WoW
Still pre-cataclysm, everyone seems to be in free fall waiting for Cataclysm proper. We've had the cataclysm itself, now we need the actual expansion to start kicking in. 8 whole days to go! Might go to the launch do in Leicester Square, just for fun, and no, not in costume.

Used the latest patch to go tame a vast menagerie of beasts for my 71 hunter. I especially like the colour changing spiky crab I got from a cave in Swamp of Sorrows. He's called Bowie because he ch-ch-ch-changes. Got Tyrantus, the Devilsaur from Outland, a green and black felboar, the green and Orange Winta's Kitten, Soriid the Devourer, and 'Damaged Hive Controller' complete with icky pulsating brain. Next stop, level and get all the Spirit Beasts once Northrend becomes like Outland (i.e. Empty)

A big shout out to Petopia for all their brilliant hunter pet data.

To sum up, I wish I'd shopped online instead, be a little nicer to people you meet, and enjoy December, it's the last month you'll get this year*

*You know, If you follow the regular calendar, not everyone does.

Monday 22 November 2010

Think you can make it, Pilgrim?

WoW
I love to paraphrase the Duke. Are you going for your Pilgrim Achievement? I would recommend this greatly, the quests are easy and reward xp and gold, but the real juicy reward is the cooking boost.

Have you ever tried to level cooking? It's easy apart from a nasty flat spot around 225 to 275 made up of salmon based food and the (several expletives) bear flank based recipes. The holiday allows you to level 0 to 350 without breaking a sweat. This kitchen involves no sweary glaswegians, and you don't to shout Yes, Chef! all the time. Double Cheggers!

Get your hearth stone set to Dalaran or Shattrath (I use the underbelly tavern in the former for load speed which works except for Jewel of the Sewers days, and the latter for peace and quiet) and you can hop back and forth to deliver much needed vittles to the various cities, reaping the rewards and acing our cooking to grand master as you go. Your main focus will be Stormwind. You get turkeys and pumpkins here. Stock up at all three cities. The Exodar you should do last, there is no material there, and it's in for the Pilgrim's Paunch achievement.

As for the Pilgrim's Peril part, I'd suggest a lot of /smile and /wave emotes, it suggests you're friendly. If you get killed, res, and return but do not retaliate. Remember you're in unfriendly territory, don't expect them to be friendly. It will work in your favour eventually. It's a good season, and segues nicely into the Cataclysm update and Winter Veil.

Elementals: go to Stormwind, and nuke the elementals, go to Ironforge and do the same. That should take care of the tripping the rifts achievement. Then go to the LFD tool and go farm iLevel 251 bits, enjoy!

IRL
My boy was 3 on Saturday. He's grown up a lot in a very short time. My parents came over from France, so the boy got to see his Ninny and Tiddy, which is lovely, they miss him. His friend's little sister was there, and she's 18 months old, I'd forgotten how small and sweet Daniel was at that age, so I'm looking forward to our next baby. Work progressing as it should. All in all, going nicely.

Have fun out there!

Tuesday 9 November 2010

We are with child

IRL: Yes, it's official, my other half is pregnant. We hope to be able to expect the arrival of our second child in late May. No, we don't know what it is, and intend to keep it that way. Only hoping for healthy and happy and whole. Anything above that is a bonus.

WoW:
Typically, just before a major expansion, I'm trying to sort my wrath endgame gear out. Got Belt of Omission and very pleased I am with it too. Next stop, decent 1 hand caster weapon and nice offhand for the bonuses.

Be good, and if you can't, be careful!

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Making Gold in Cataclysm - Zuggy special edition

No IRL this edition, it's covered nicely in my previous post.

WoW
OK, the possibly most covered topic in WoW ever since, like, July. So I'm going to take a different tack. I work by day in a banking/investment firm (Boo hiss you say, I'm sure, but hey, I'm not biting the hand that feeds). One thing I've noticed, money makes money, so I guess gold makes gold. If there's something on the AH that can be sold for more, chances are it's already quite expensive. Do you have 12.5K to buy chopper parts? If so, I'm sure you'd sell the chopper for 15K, right? Not possible if you don't have the initial outlay, or a very understanding guild. So let's take this to Cataclysm. You're 80, wandering around the new zones, you can't fly in Azeroth until you purchase the license, so therefore, if you're a gatherer you're a step behind the ones that did get it. This means you miss the crest of the wave. When TBC hit, new materials cost a king's ransom, but undercutting worked in the buyers' favour and prices normalised at a high point, then eventually the true prices became commonplace. If you want to take advantage of other people's gold reserves you need to supply their needs before another seller does. Remember the old maxim: If you don't look after your customers, someone else will.

So, my first gold making tip for cataclysm is something of an oxymoron - Make Gold in Wrath and stockpile it. You'll need it to get your flight license, train up gathering skills and simply for stamina. Do you want to have to go back to the Argent Ren faire for gold while others are cruising around new and knackered Azeroth mining all the nodes? Didn't think so, either.

Second tip: Go get things now you can't have in Wrath - The Razzashi Raptor pet, for example. There will be a number of things discontinued by the Cata update 4.0.3, so go read Zuggy's brilliant tips and other sites that list what's going away. Thanks to Breanni for his brilliant site on pets.

Third Tip: Pets - People pay damn good money for them. The Pet Mini Tyreal is going for $985.00(!!!) on eBay. I'm not suggesting you break Blizzard rules, but look at that in gold terms, people will pay good gold for pets in game. With a little travelling (And you can use this time for some archaeology, and XP from travelling - my favourite thing ever - lol) you can amass a decent collection of pets and flog them on your faction's AH for a tidy profit. Part two of this is to organise with a friend to sell pets, roll an opposing faction toon, and visit the independent AH and sell Alliance pets to Hordies and Horde pets to Alliance bods. The secret is to have your friend on Ventrilo or Mumble or somesuch similar. You then sell your friend a grey item for 150G, he uses this to buy his faction pets, he puts these on the independent AH for a tiny amount (With you there on Vent, Mumble etc ready to snap them up before someone else does. You then sell them on your Faction AH, and reverse the process, dragonhawk hatchlings were very popular at start of TBC. Your hordie can farm Black Cats from Hillsbrad Fields. To sum it up: I sold moths for a tidy sum from the Exodar AH, the buyer was a Draenei in the Exodar. This was exploiting one great virtue of WoW players, sloth. (I know it's a sin, but if you're selling to a sloth, it's a virtue)

Fourth Tip: Buy the stuff levellers will need when it becomes cheaper in WoW. When the new ores and cloths and leather hit, the old ones will probably nose dive. People slightly behind the curve (And remember, new expansion means new players, not everyone will be 80 on launch day) will need these things that no one is gathering to level. You could always go gather these things and corner the market, too. Case in point - Wool Cloth. End of the argent ren faire cycle, 5th alt to 80, bored of questing for rep, go to the AH, spend silly money on Wool cloth and get a rep hike with the NPC's outside the tailor trainers in the capitals. Wool Cloth is easy to get for an 80, as in every cloth, ore and leather.

Fifth Tip: On the subject of ore and leather, if you have the slots, or are planning to level a Goblin or Worgen or other alt, roll two chars. Get one to do Mining, First Aid, Skinning, Fishing, Archaeology, and Cooking. Get the other to do Herbalism, First Aid, Skinning, Archaeology, Fishing and Cooking. The reasons are thus: Mining and Herbalism are on the same minimap. This means you can't use the minimap to locate both herbs and mining nodes. The rest of the professions are to gather needed materials, mainly to sell, but some to level your alt and gain access to better materials to sell, level and so on and so forth.

Sixth Tip: (Although you've probably already done this already) Form a Bank Guild. Roll a toon (one of the above ones), go to your nearest capital, and get a guild charter with signatures (You'll probably need to pay people to sign as un-guilded toons are something of a rarity, and they're all trying to make gold too) and get one of your toons to supply your bank toon with bags and gold. Buy all the slots in the guild bank and bags slots in your toon's bank. Use this to store your crafting mats, selling mats, BoE drops for auctioning etc. etc. You can post all your greys to this toon too, because if you leave them in a city, they can vendor all the vendor trash, and use the money for auction fees for the other (decent) stuff you send them. One fun thing to do with Bank toons (And why I recommend Warrior alts as bank toons) is to clad them in interesting garb (I love my warrior wearing the Unadorned Chainmail from the Belf starter area, looks really cool on a female dwarf with a red plait, which is another reason to get a friend to do the honours with an opposing faction toon)

All in all, keep your eyes open, save your gold and spend it wisely. And of course, enjoy :D

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Movember!

IRL:
I've shaved my resplendent beard off for a charity event called Movember, it's to grow a Moustache (a 'Mo') for the whole of this Month ('November'see what they did there?)

It's for Prostate Cancer and men's health issues. I have a son, and I have nephews, so it's not entirely selfless :D

Please help us by clicking this link - Movember

WoW:
I hate failed raids. Went on one last night, had an hour to play, spent 20 getting people together, spent 20 playing, then the raid wiped and they spent 20 minutes bitching about it. Meh!