Has Anyone Ever Successfully Managed to Navigate the Exodar?

I mean, seriously.

EXODARPic related, it’s an actual map of the Exodar.

Okay, seriously, I have never, in the eight years it’s been since Burning Crusade, been able to navigate this thing.  Ever.  It used to be I’d have to hearthstone to get out.  Recently I ran in as a Horde character with for the Midsummer achivement and guess what, I had to hearth out.  After spending like ten minutes trying to find the stupid bonfire to begin with.

The Exodar and me just don’t get along.  We just don’t.  It’s probably because it knows that I’m actually a blood elf in real life and is doing this just to spite me.

Is it just me?  Please tell me it’s not just me.

Forget Demon Hunters, You Know What Class I Want to See?

Spellbreakers.

fanart-1243-fullSpellbreakers.  Do you guys see this?  You know what these guys do?  They’re warrior-mages and they interrupt and steal spells.  What if you could be, like… a mail-wearing melee mage who steals spells off of other people and then turns those spells against others?

That’s what I want to be.  That is 100% a class I would play.

Oh sure, I’ll probably make a Demon Hunter, the same way I made a Death Knight (that I stopped playing at level 58) and the same way I made a monk (that I stopped playing at level 7 or something).

But spellbreakers, guys.

Just… spellbreakers.

SpellbreakerWC3Oh and P.S. they also have the best quotes in Warcraft 3.  “Reincarnate.. man!  That’ll get you life!

So I’ve Been Playing This Quirky Retro-Style MMO Called Project Gorgon

Project Gorgon is currently in playable alpha, and because why not, I’ve been messing around with it.

I downloaded it intending to mess around for about an hour, but then I ended up playing it for like three hours.  And then playing it again the next day.  And honestly I’ll probably play it again later today, too.

cool afThis is a (primarily) two-person project crafted with a lot of love and the result is a delightful old-school RPG with a big focus on exploration.  Think Elder Scrolls.  Like, think early Elder Scrolls.  Daggerfall but with Morrowind graphics.  Add two cups of some other people running around, a pinch of Everquest, and then a sprinkle of great humor and hat-wearing bugs for spice.  This is what is currently cooking in the Project Gorgon oven.

GOTYAYI’m not exactly sure why I find this game so charming.  I think it’s because it just tosses you out in the world (well, it tosses you in a tutorial cave, but there’s a cheat to bail if you want to)  and gives you no other real direction.  There are quests hidden around, but there are no quest markers of any sort, so you actually have to learn the names of NPCs and what they do and where they are.  The game just revolves around the idea that this is a whole new world for you to explore, and it isn’t gonna hold your hand.  Like I said: old-school Elder Scrolls.

Anyways, it’s probably not to everyone’s style, but I just find it to be a really charming game so far, even if I have no idea what I’m doing!  Go check it out if it looks like your kind of thing.

Let’s Talk About Felo’melorn For Two Minutes

You know what part of the upcoming expansion I’m most excited about?

I’ll tell you what: Felo’melorn.

I don’t even main a mage and this is the most exciting tidbit of WoW info I’ve heard in forever.

So lemme tell you guys about this weapon.

Felo’melorn

 

WoW_Legion_Felo'melornThis weapon was originally wielded by a guy named Dath’remar Sunstrider, who was a Highborne night elf.  He was kind of a weird night elf, though.  For starters, the name “Sunstrider” was really strange for a night elf name.  Also his hair was golden.  Ever seen a night elf with gold hair?  I didn’t think so!

The Highborne eventually got kicked out of Night Elf World for magic tomfoolery, and they ended up far away where they founded Quel’Thalas and became the high elves.  Anyways, Dath’remar had a weapon called Felo’melorn, which is Thalassian for Flamestrike.  This was handed down through his family to his grandson, Anasterian Sunstrider, and eventually ended up in the hands of his great-grandson, Kael’thas Sunstrider.

Kael

Reborn from the Ashes

See, during the Scourge Invasion in the Third War, Anasterian Sunstrider wielded this legendary artifact against Arthas in one-on-one battle, but unfortunately the blade could not withstand the might of Frostmourne, and it was sliced in half.  Kael’thas took the two pieces, reforged the blade himself, and guess what?  When he went to fight Arthas with it himself, the blade held. Felo’melorn was stronger when re-forged than it was originally… just like the elves themselves.

That’s the weapon that fire mages are gonna get in the expansion.  That whole story and legacy of at least ten thousand years.  And boy am I stoked that I’m leveling a blood elf fire mage right now.

So yeah.  Have a fire mage?  GET HYPED.

Not gonna lie, I’ve kind of been in love with this thing for a while.  Just a little bit.

phoenix petOne Last Thing

Someone got to my blog via the search term “how long ago was it that kaelthas went to outland?”  The correct answer is: lore-wise, it was about ten years ago.  Specifically, it was 22 years after the First War.  Hope that helps!

I HAVE SOME CONCERNS, aka Screw It, I’ll Play My Mage

There are a lot of things about the impending expansion that I’m not really sold on.  I don’t want to say they’ve turned me off of the game, because obviously we’ve only been aware of this stuff for 24 hours.  There’s a lot that can change between now and, you know, whenever this actually releases in the future.

But, okay.  Like.  Artifact weapons.  They are tied to your spec.  If I want the really cool phoenix bow with the really cool elf lore, I have to be Marksmanship.  But Marksmanship is confirmed for not having a pet in the expansion (similarly, Survival is confirmed for being a melee spec) and that does not appeal to me in the slightest.

So… wat do?

CLEARLY the answer is to play my mage.  At least he’s gonna get Felo’melorn, which I plan on nerding out over in a different post very soon.

Besides, once you start porting everywhere, you can’t go back.

World of Warcraft: Legion AKA World of Warcraft: Pike Likes Pretty Elves

So the new expansion has been announced!  Turns out my Council of Glaves guess earlier was wrong, but hey, I kind of sort of called Demon Hunter, right?  Granted I was off on the specifics, but you know, details.

What am I hyped about?  Well I’ll tell you what I’m hyped about BIG HUNKY TOPLESS ELF MEN.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

I saved this picture as CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS.jpg
I saved this picture as CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS.jpg

I’m also hyped about some of these weapons we’re getting.  Felo’melorn for my Fire Mage?  Some super awesome looking phoenix bow for Althalor?  Yes.  Sign me up.  SIGN ME UP.

Also Alleria Windrunner?  Only the return of the best Windrunner sister?  I am here for this.

I’m not 100% sold on the overall aesthetic of the expansion yet.  I feel like we’ve been fighting the Burning Legion for approximately 1295862345 years, and I’m not really into this dusky magical night elf stuff (give me more of my lovely blood elves every day).  But hey, I’m sure we’ll be getting more details in the future.  For now I’m sort of cautiously hyped more than super hyped.  Thanks to WoW Token I feel like I can sort of fund my sub indefinitely so hey, might as well play a new expansion, right?

What are you guys thinkin’?

Pike’s Gold Making Guide For People Who Suck At Making Gold

I’ve mentioned on Twitter a couple of times that, although I am not even remotely one of those hardcore gold-making people, I find it fairly easy to pay for my subscription via the gold I make with just one garrison.  Anyways, a couple of people have shown interest in a guide for that purpose, so here it is!

Before I begin, I want to note the following things:

  • This will not teach you how to min/max garrisons.
  • This will not teach you how to use those super fancy TradeSkillMaster addons or whatever the gold makers use these days.
  • This guide is not intended for people who find it easy to hit gold cap or who like to sit around on the auction house all day doing their thing.
  • This guide is intended for the little guy.  Someone who doesn’t really care much about being in-game rich but would like a couple of WoW Tokens.

So without further ado:

money-bags-psd65188

From One Garrison to WoW Tokens: Pike’s Gold Making Guide For People Who Suck At Making Gold

The set-up:

I use the following garrison buildings for my money-making purposes:

  • Trading Post
  • Inn
  • Salvage Yard
  • Herb Garden/Mine (of course).
  • Alchemy Lab (Optional)
Step One: Missions

I tend to send my followers out on missions twice a day.  Usually once before work and once after work.  Sometimes if I have nothing better to do I’ll do a round before bed but usually two daily check-ins suffices.  This ensures that you have people doing stuff for you and bringing you back things for delicious gold at basically all times.

You’re going to want to use your Inn here to recruit followers with the Treasure Hunter trait, so you can double the gold you get back on missions.  The Scavenger trait is another good one to have a couple of followers with, because we can turn garrison resources into more money.  (More on this later.)

Remember to send all your guys out on missions even if the only reward is experience.  This will get you salvage, which we’re going to cover riiiiiight… now:

Step Two: Salvage

This is the part where your salvage yard becomes your best friend.  You can turn around and sell just about everything you get to the vendor for money.

Occasionally you might get things you want to hang on to.  Herbs and ore, of course, but sometimes equipment can be sold for a better price on the auction house.  This does tend to be finicky.  Blues– even good ones– don’t often sell particularly well in a post-heirlooms world.  Epics do tend to sell but they can be slow-moving.  Keep an eye out for things that might make useful transmog gear.  I once sold an eyepatch with terrible stats for several hundred gold because hey, it’s an eyepatch, and those are cool now.  Kind of like fezzes.

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Step Three: Mine and Herb Garden

Every single day go hoover up all the mines and herbs that you’ve got and then stick ’em in your bank.  Once you’ve got about 300 of a single kind of herb/ore, take a 200 stack and stick it on the auction house.  (The reason I wait around to hit 300 before selling is because that way you always have extras for when the Ore/Herb/Whatever Trader shows up in your garrison.)

Step Four: Savage Bloods

The cost of these is down to a mere 25 Primal Spirits from your Primal Spirit trader and they’re still selling like hotcakes on the Auction House.  If you’re doing your dailies every day (in Tanaan or what-have-you) and hitting up the Ore/Herb traders, you should have no problems being able to stock up on Savage Bloods and re-sell them all on the Auction House.

Optional Step: Alchemy Lab

I keep my alchemist well stocked with frostweed and she provides me with tons of Alchemical Catalysts and Sorcerous Waters/Fires.  All of which goes straight onto the Auction House.  I have this listed up here as optional primarily because you may prefer to have a different building related to your profession or whatever.  Me, I just have it here for the extra money (and the flasks/potions are a nice bonus.)

941075__safe_solo_card_filthy+rich_hearthstone_super+richStep Five: Convert Garrison Resources into Sellable Things

If you’ve been playing for more than a few months, then you probably don’t really have much to use your garrison resources for anymore.  This is where your Trading Post comes in handy, because you can use it to turn your garrison resources into ore, herbs, Draenic Dust, or whatever is selling on your server.  For maximum profits, be sure only to buy what is on sale rotation for four resources a pop that day.

You can also experiment with converting garrison resources into rush orders for your mine, which gets you more ore and thus more things to sell.  I honestly haven’t looked into which method is more effective yet.

Step Six: Do Your Tanaan Dailies Every Day:

For Primal Spirit drops, as well as getting a chance to mine/pick/skin/fish everything you see for Felblight.  Which you sell, of course.

Step Seven: Make Out Like a Bandit

By following this guide you should not only be getting money back from missions and salvage every day, but also be able to successfully toss stacks of ore, herbs, and other assorted items (like Savage Bloods, Felblights, Alchemical Catalysts etc.) on the AH basically every single day.  Upon taking all of this into consideration I’d say I average about 1200g a day in profits (give or take), or about 36k in a month.  A WoW Token is ~25,000g so that leaves me with 11k extra every month as well as a paid subscription.  Honestly looking at it now I probably average even more money than that.

And all this with just one garrison!

So yeah, that’s how I do it.  Like I said, this isn’t going to tell you how to min/max, how to have ten alts, how to play the Auction House, or whatever.  It’s just tellin’ ya Pike’s Tried and True Method to get WoW Tokens with Minimal Effort.

Hope this helps!

Close_up_of_Pinkie_Pie_S1E12

I’m Trying Out New Unit Frames, Probably Because I Hate Myself

Okay, okay, I don’t really hate myself.  But I kind of hate that I had to spend like an hour putzing around with Shadowed Unit Frames to get it to how I like it.

shadowed ufI feel it pertinent to point out that I’ve been using X-Perl Unit Frames (and recently Z-Perl Unit Frames) for, like, ten years.  I’m a big fan and it has served my needs in basically every way.  Then I got a new monitor and for whatever esoteric reason, this new monitor occasionally causes the lovely 3D portrait of my beautiful blood elf to shapeshift into some sort of face-less eldritch horror.

This bothers me a lot, and I can’t find a fix for it (although if any of you know a fix PLEASE let me know), so I decided to try a new unit frame addon.  Enter Shadowed Unit Frames, which so far are succeeding in NOT turning Althalor into a horrifying monstrosity, much to his relief.

The question now is: can I adapt to a new addon after using a different one for a decade?  Can you teach an old hunter new tricks?

We’ll just have to find out.

Do You Min/Max Your Fantasy Races?

Discussion of racials and their effect on PvP is all the rage right now if MMO-Champion is any indication.  This brings me to my topic of the day: when you roll up your fantastical fictional race (or normal human, if you swing that way), do you take things like racials into consideration?

Because I don’t.  Not in the slightest.

In World of Warcraft, I tend to be drawn to races that I like for various personal reasons.  My love for gnomes and goblins comes from my love of technology, robots, and SCIENCE! in general.  My love for the tauren is because Mulgore reminds me of where I live, and the way they exist in harmony with their homeland is very appealing to me.  And blood elves, well… let’s face it, they’ve got the best lore in the entire Warcraft universe.  I’ve felt that way basically since Kael’thas become a major player in WC III: The Frozen Throne.

Oh, also, blood elves are pretty.

The prettiest, in fact.

Especially the guys.

CLbcPDNVEAASL9v.jpg largeSo yeah.  Orc hunters may min/max out at a slightly higher DPS but if there’s no /flourish then there’s no deal, to be honest!

What about you guys?

Good Games That Are Good: Endless Legend

I’ve had this game sitting around for a while (like some 300-odd other games on Steam), but I didn’t actually install it until a few days ago.  You see, I was feeling a 4X scratch that needed to be itched, and since everything I’ve heard about Endless Legend has been overwhelmingly positive, I decided to try it out.

It’s only been a few days and I’m already confident that this is probably the best 4X since Civ IV.

urlEndless Legend is vaguely set in the same universe that Endless Space was.  The main difference is that Endless Legend gives us more of a fantasy spin on what is still probably ultimately science fiction, where Endless Space was planted pretty firmly on the spaceships side of that scale.  In addition, many of the gaming mechanics and aspects of the UI are similar, so if you’re familiar with Endless Space, jumping into Endless Legend is pretty easy.

But Endless Legend definitely improves upon and refines what Endless Space did, and the result is a game that is actually one of the best in the genre, rather than being a pretty good attempt.

As a ground-based 4X (as opposed to a space-based one) , this plays very similarly to, say, Civilization.  But it really shines in flavor lore and also in battles that you can actually run yourself!  It’s like a tactical mini-game in the midst of your big strategy game.

endless legendAnd yes, that delicious flavor lore.  Endless Legend takes a page from RPGs here, offering a variety of quests (including a main quest for each race) as well as hero units that gain experience and have their own talent trees.  I always appreciate a strategy game with good “other-worldly” lore, since so often you either get history (think Civ and most Grand Strategy games) or you’re just expected to go in and kill the bad guy without thinking much about the why (Warcraft before III, basically.)

Also in one of these quests you’re a robot, so that’s cool.

I AM A ROBOTAnyways, if you’ve ever enjoyed a Civ game, I recommend looking into Endless Legend.  It’s a lot of fun so far and overall a very smooth and polished gaming experience.

If you’re someone who plays World of Warcraft and would like to buy more in-game currency, you should check out this site to buy WoW classic gold.