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Back to Glyph selling

Published
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Yashima
on October 12, 2009
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Actually we are just back from vacation. Before vacation I had started into the Glyph business inspired by the Greedy Goblin. I only had a couple of days of course I did however manage to make the chief glyph seller angry it seems because when I logged onto my AH alt this evening I was immediately greeted by him and a longish discussion about undercutting followed. He tried to – politely – convince me to undercut by less. I really had not expected this to happen before a week or more of posting.

I did finish empty-ing my post box and if I felt like telling him I could tell him I made more than 1000gold of that last batch I posted before vacation. Which simply rocks. <3 undercutting :D and I am only undercutting by 10g so far. He tried to convince me to go to 50s. Cute.

But I have to give him this: he stayed very polite – so far. He has been in the business for some time now and seemed to be a nice person all in all. I am not the greedy goblin, I wonder what I will do when this guy gets really annoyed at me.

Need another Brew

Published
by
Yashima
on October 2, 2009
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I am back in the game with a shiny new computer on which to play. After finally remembering to install the latest wine-beta everything is running quite smoothly now.

Except right now I am standing here in the middle of the night hoping against hope – yes we failed – that I will manage to defend the brewfest against the dark iron for another ten coins! I just found out that I need to rejoin the brewclub to get the 12th brew because for some reason or other I didn’t get it.

I did open a ticket and now I am hoping that I will either manage another 150 coins until Sunday afternoon – after that I will have no more access to the game due to vacation – or that my ticket will result in a single bottle of acorn ale finding itself into my mailbox … I find it really well – mean – to have this membership last exactly a year and then have the first beer not count just because I either handed in the brew club membership form late and never got the first one in the mail or because I just drank the first one before the achievement system hit the shelves :(

Either way I am disappointed I didn’t get the achievement and will maybe have to wait another year to get another few coins … which I could easily have gotten if I had found out a couple of days BEFORE October 1st.

Update October 2nd ca. 9:30 p.m.: I just went online to check the state of my ticket concerning the Brew of the Year. I am one happy little druid now. I found a very nice answer in my mailbox including a bottle of the missing Acorn Ale :) This is the solution I hoped for. One more happy customer!

No playtime

Published
by
Yashima
on September 8, 2009
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Ifraqis: Teno hast du auch nen Fallschirmumhang?This week-end my computer started breaking down.

I distinctly remember how I got it and was so happy when I could fly into Ironforge and it wouldn’t reduce me to 5 fps anymore. A few months later the Burning Crusade graphics update and the added polygons killed my fps again.

That is how I know how old my computer is. Actually I bought it to play Oblivion because I had enjoyed Morrowind so much. Only I never played Oblivion a lot.

We believe it is the harddrive that is failing now. There are funny noises coming out of the computer and all the fans are working fine. Sometimes it is working ok and I can play a bit or sort through photos from the guild meeting.  (link to the public photos). Other times my computer turns itself off in the middle of an instance …

So I backuped all the data (mostly photos) to my usb drive and now I am contemplating buying new hardware. I really wanted to wait till next year at least when Cataclysm was closer. I would really like to have current hardware then, not now nearing the end of Wrath. I can live with having a mere 15-20 fps in Wrath (and that is outside Dalaran) …

Grmpf.

Planning Ahead

Published
by
Yashima
on September 3, 2009
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I just saw Siha’s todo list over at Banana Shoulders and since I already made one some time ago on my favorite online todo-list app, I thought it would be a wonderful way to get another post up – which seems so hard to do these days.

So do I really want to make my goals public? They aren’t quite as insane as Siha’s I have to admit. But I should do the software developer thing and give estimates how long all this will take.

These goals are in a particular order as I prioritize some higher than others. Highest on the list are those that I fear may be obsoleted by some future patch or expansion. I also do some other things like Heroics and PvP in the list are mostly things from older content now that I really want to get done before the next expansion hits:

  • (5-6 hours) Loremaster of Kalimdor 110 Qs (Eastern already done)
  • (5-6 hours, needs hunter) Loremaster: after Kalimdor only 110 or so Quests in Icecrown to be done. (Seeker is already finished)
  • (2-3 hours, needs group) Down Malygos for Champion of the Frozen Wastes (can you believe it? I haven’t got that one yet? oO). I am not sure this one might not be going away just like Champion of the Naaru …
  • (3-4 hours, needs hunter) Finish the remaining BC heroics (Mechanar, CoT 1 + 2, Shadow Lab)
  • (4-6 hours, needs group) Finish all the classic raids (AQ20 + BWL)
  • (1 hour, needs group) Go see Trial of the Champions on heroic oO (see I play a lot)
  • (4-6 hours, boorring), Catch “The One That Got Away” – goal is the Dark Herring because in the Fjord I can also fish for the turtle mount
  • (4-6 hours, borring) Catch me a Mr. Pinchy – no luck so far
  • (10-20 min/day) Do the daily fishing quest in hopes of a strand crawler
  • (5 min/day) Check every day if the Crokolisks  are in the city
  • (5 hours) Finish the tournament Champions: only Ironforge to go – a full 5 days of dailies ahead of me, will probably also finish off Silver Covenant rep. I hate jousting. Boooring.
  • (10 min/week) Visit the Oracles for eggs
  • (4 hours) Farm Kurenai Rep up for lots of mounts and tabard
  • (4-6 hours) Farm Strat / Scholo oldschool for Argent Crusade Rep
  • (9×30 min /day) Oracle Rep and then … switch

Meta Goals: Tabards, Mounts, Reputations, Minipets

  • Reps (17/20): Kurenai for the mounts and the tabard. Just need to kill about 400 ogres. Farm myself through Strat & Scholo about half a dozen times to finish up the Argent Dawn. Quest for the Oracles about 9 more days. Just 10 more Heroics with the Wyrmrest Accord tabard. Do some instances for Honor Hold, Keepers of Time, Lower City and dailies for the Shattered Sun which should yield 4 more tabards as well. Finish the dailies for the Netherwing (I am only halfway through Honored) to get more mounts. Do more tournament dailies for marks and of course the Argent Crusade.
  • Minipets (73/75): Get me 2 more minipets to get the Little Fawn. Options: 2 more crokilisks, tournament pets, Magical Crawdad, Strand Crawler, Whelpling or Hatchling farming, Mojo, WoW Bday Pets, Phoenix … lots of places to go farm a bit or just wait for World Events to give me some
  • Mounts (49/50):I need one more mount to get the Albino Drake, just one! I cannot believe how often I failed to get one more of the bug mounts in AQ40 this past tuesday … well I got a yellow one at least. Of course I could easily spend 5 marks and 400 gold for one of the “cheap” tournament mounts. I am planning on the Kurenai mounts … soon. I really want to farm Sethekk for the Raven mount. I don’t think solo-ing that one is an option. So I need to get my hunter to go with me. Easiest would be to go do CoT-Strat for the mount there … take the hunter he has it already and chances are … better.
  • Tabards (16/25): I bought all I could find. Now I guess I’ll have to farm a few more BC reputations and finish the Loremaster for more. There are the Knight’s Colors and the Alterac Tabard still out there as well … this is not too high on my priority list as simply farming BC reps will yield most of the missing tabards.
  • Epic … missing so many pieces in so many slots. Most would be easier gotten through PvP. Maybe I will go that route. I even made a plan where the “cheapest” (in terms of effort) iLvl 213 items for each missing slot can be found. Welfare Epics hooray!

Of course all the Achievements for the different World Events are on my list but way too many to list. If I manage them all I should get the Meta-Mount around Children’s Week next year. Yes I missed out on many events since Achievements came about nearly a year ago.

Happy Birthday Guild!

Published
by
Yashima
on August 25, 2009
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Our little guild has turned 4 years old today!

And we are still there and going strong.

We’re looking forward to guild achievements and guild leveling in Cataclysm and hope very much that small guilds like ours that don’t raid so much will still be profit from the announced guild features!

4 years is quite a long time for a computer game. I and several others have been there at the beginning and we are still there! It was a ride with more ups than downs and I hope it will continue for as long as we have fun playing and the friendships will last even beyond the game :)

<3 Boten des Sturms @ Terrordar!

Here’s a link to the official guild news – including pictures from the last 4 years.

Achievements & Goals

Published
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Yashima
on August 14, 2009
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I never got around to post a second part of the looting post and so it sat there keeping me from posting more interesting things – so I changed the title and I am leaving it at that (the guild discussion was finished in a similar manner through disinterest which is the main reason I never got to the second post).

I am actually playing quite a bit these days – with occasional breaks of a week or two of course.

Mostly I we are now questing in Icecrown – indeed The Final Goal before the Loremaster of Northrend awaits us – just about 110 more quests or so.

This morning we found out that Tenobaal as Beastmaster and I as Treemancer can finish “Threat from Above” – not easily but we can do it :) The pet tanks the dragon, the tree tanks the three cultists and the hunter kills everything.

So now the hunter is hunting for a new pet – his very first time being a beastmaster this is! He needs a pretty tank pet. Any suggestions?

I am hunting minipets: got Snarly and the Teldrassil Sproutling this morning and I am just one elusive book away from the Kirin Tor Familiar (my strategy: logging out in that spot and logging in early in the morning when Dalaran is empty).

The Ambassador Title is close – today or tomorrow I’ll reach it. After that I am going for the remaining Champions (working on Gnomeregan now, IF after that). On the side I am questing in Kalimdor. The Seeker title is close already – just about 150 quests and you bet I’ll be having my loremaster sometime soonish.

Just 14 more awards for the Chef title – Salty remains unattainable since I dare say I’ll never manage to win the contest.

When all that’s done I’ll be doing the battleground rounds.I already had tons of fun a few nights ago doing a few Arathis (needed marks for a pvp mount) and winning all four of them 5:0, 3 out of 4 1600:0 and one in less than 6 minutes. It was wonderful looking at the map seeing people use tactics, reacting and moving and just playing so good that it was a joy to be part of it.

Another goal is to get both the 10% shoulders (from Wintergrasp) and the 10% chest from heroics to outfit my lowbies to level faster. I lately did a couple of really quick levels on my Shaman (64 now) and I am hoping to improve the leveling speed even more. She needs new weapons. She’s still swinging those two third legs like she was an elekk.

You see: tons of goals and to little playtime.

PS: why are there so many things to buy for the Champion’s Seals and so few seals to get … grml.

No Fuss Looting

Published
by
Yashima
on July 3, 2009
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More guild related stuff – since it’s all about the guild I guess there is not much else to expect from me wow-wise these days.

Karekare Beach

We really need to update our loot guidelines for our raiding activities. We have not adapted them for Wrath so far … what we want is a system

  • without DKP, which only remembers the current run
  • which favors or discriminates nobody (alts or non-members for example)
  • distributes loot evenly to people who can use it
  • is easy to remember and explain to newbies
  • easy and quick to implement
  • takes care of dual spec issues
  • handles tier pieces fairly and takes buying them for currency into account
  • avoids sharding pieces
  • makes participants happy :D

We have had very little loot related trouble in the past. I dare say, this is because our members are mature and nearly always remember “Looters First Rule”

Talk to each other!

Of course that is not enough because the talking can take quite long if there aren’t a few guidelines around to help you determine how good your standing is for a certain piece of loot. One has to remember we’re not a progression guild, so we go quite slow and don’t try to optimize the raid by loot distribution.

We also don’t discriminate based on equipment level who we take on a raid but it is considered common courtesy to ask if you can bring an undergeared alt to a raid instead of your main. The same goes for roles: People usually offer to bring that character or play that role in which completes the raid. People have been known to switch characters in the middle of a run because another healer/caster/one-less-melee was needed or a certain type of tank would improve chances to win an encounter.

Now how to distribute loot in a setting like this?

Quite easy … right?

Implicit Rules

Published
by
Yashima
on July 3, 2009
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Do you have rules in your guild that are there, but you don’t know about them? Implicit is not even the right word because we just never thought there was an issue …

We just found one.

Danger!

Our guild always said that we don’t want to be one of those guilds that would discriminate based on age. So we put an affirmation into our guild charter that there was no minimum age for becoming a member.

Our current ages range from 15 to 35 and I would place the average somewhere near 25. We have very few highschool students, a few are college students and most of us are working. Since the guild was founded we had only a handfull of members join us at age 15 or 16. So far there has not been any age related trouble in the guild – at least not that I am aware of. We felt age was not an issue.

We could have noticed though, how on previous applications when the applicants were younger than 16 people would always comment on the age even if it was not a reason for rejecting an application. The fact did not register and we still considered us a guild without age restrictions.

Until this week.

The applicant I wrote about in my last post was only 12 years old.

My first reaction was “OMG he’s so young, how can I possibly explain to him – without hurting him – that we are not a raiding guild and he might be applying to the wrong guild …”. So I wrote that guild description. His application was nice and well written – for a 12 year old. Do you want to cause this young kid a major disappointment when his only mistake was in being too young?

So on the internal application discussion forum I wrote that I would give him a chance. I have since revised my original vote which was in his favor. As the posts started coming in from various members one common sentiment prevailed “I am sorry, the application is nice but he is just too young!” People gave reasons for this and they were all right. In the end everyone was just way too uncomfortable with the responsibility of having such a young kid with us. Our guild chat can and often does contain mature “content”, our forums contain links to mature content, we have RL meetups which he could in no way attend, … people joke and talk in teamspeak and don’t want to always check if it is ok for a 12 year old to listen in.

We thought we did not have a minimum age and we did not, not in the rules. Now we know that we do have an age restriction in the minds of our members. It is actually the age of 16 with exceptions being made for 15 year olds. Why 16? Probably because that is the age where a young person does get a few rights and can take some responsibility for themselves. At 12: no way.

So now we are thinking about making this rule public in our guild charter. In my opinion it is much more fair to have it in there than not. What do you think?

It’s all about the guild

Published
by
Yashima
on July 2, 2009
.Tags: 1 Comment

While I have been busy sorting my honeymoon pictures and looking forward to uploading wedding pictures, thinking about the design of the “Thank you” cards and getting back to work … I have also played a little bit.

Picture from our post guild meeting Stranglethorn “Raid”

Now I have been playing for more than 4 years, longer than any other computer game (there is at least one game I have been playing far longer: I am talking about our Pen&Paper campaign).

The game appeal is long gone. Yet I still play – and nearly exclusively – this game. The exclusive part mostly comes from having switched to Linux and being too lazy to get other games to run.

I have no trouble at all filling my time with my other hobbies (reading, photography, cooking, gardening) and meeting friends. Still I make time for the game. Sometimes I think I should really quit playing completely because however little time I wish to spend it always ends up being more than I planned.

But … I still decide to not quit. To me the game is a colorful backdrop for meeting our lovely guildies. Our guild adventure took off nearly four years ago. The guild turns 4 in late August and we are hoping to have an in-game celebration and if everything works out we’ll meet up at a Reenactment Faire and celebrate iRL as well. There are still people left from the earliest days and many more who have been with us for years.

The other day we had someone apply to the guild. As often the application had a couple of points that didn’t quite sound like it was the right guild for the person. So I wrote up a short description what he could expect from us as a guild and closed the description by writing: “The basis that this guild is built on is friendship. It does’t happen overnight and it may take a new member a while to really really be part of the guild but once you get there you will probably stay.”

We do have our disagreements and people leave the guild because often friendship is not enough when people want more activity, more progression or just disagree with the direction the guild is taking on some issues.

During our absence two founding members of the guild left (not for the first time but this time it’s for good I am sure). This happens but in the end it changes nothing that our guild model can be summed up as “Circle of Friends”. It is as much or more work and emotional stress as the other models that exist but it is very rewarding and keeps me playing … (yeah and I still help run the guild after 4 years so one more argument for playing).

When writing the answer to that application it was for the first time that I realized that it really was so. We are not a Raiding or Progression Guild and always made that clear to everyone. We are not a Casual Guild either – we take the guild itself and often the game much too serious for that. While many of us do PvP we are not a PvP Guild. The missing element in all our attempts to describe ourselves has always been the fact that we place a lot of value on the dedication and commitment of our members despite not wanting to be a progression guild.

I was delighted when several members noted that they had enjoyed reading my description and found it fitting.

So the reason I am still playing are not achievements, content or gameplay, it’s just all about the people.

Back from Honeymoon

Published
by
Yashima
on June 15, 2009
.Tags: 2 Comments

First Beach: Piha Beach

Just a short note to let you all know we are back from our 5-week honeymoon. I hope I will get back to posting here in the next few days, so far I have only managed to finish reading guild forum posts: I have neither logged in nor read any blogs – yet.