Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Out And About

by Gimmlette


I don't remember this being here.

This is from the Tanaan Jungle starter quests, specifically the quest that frees Gul'dan from his prison. I was running around deactivating the crystals and saw this. I don't remember this crystal having a sword through it when I was through here on Gimmlette. Is this something I can obtain on my warrior? Was it added later? The sword design is one a number of one and two-handers use. It's huge, so I'm guessing it was an ogre's. It's not big enough to be Mannoroth's.

Does anyone remember? Did I miss this the first time through, which wouldn't be unusual?

Monday, April 27, 2015

Suggestion Box

by Gimmlette

Remember flying around the zone Zul'Drak in Wrath? It was not my favorite zone. I didn't like the color palette chosen; blue, white, gray, brick red, brown. The story line through ZD was interesting, but some of the questing was difficult and was a lot of "go here and kill 15 of these". The best part was freeing the troll animal spirits.

One of the interesting things about Zul'Drak was the broken irrigation system around the east side of the zone.


I think this was modeled on the ancient Roman aqueducts which still work in some areas of the world. Sections of ZD's aqueducts are broken so the water doesn't travel the full length of the system. This section is over by The Argent Stand.

I have always thought it would be way cool to have a quest and achievement to ride the system from start to finish. It would be like Donkey Kong's mine. You remember playing that, right? You'd get a small raft or boat and have to leap it over the broken sections, picking up power ups to make you go faster or leap broken sections with ease. Leaping, hopping or jumping is something I do not do well. I would, however, spend a lot of time trying to ride this if there was an achievement for doing it.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Out And About

by Gimmlette


So, do you have your jukebox yet? It was a big deal when a lot of guild members got their juke box all at around the same time. Several people set out into the world to find all the music scrolls. If you get 20 scrolls, you get the achievement, Azeroth's Top Twenty. This gets you the toy, Portable Audiophone, so you can take your music anywhere.

The above is the mystical mushroom circle in western Tirisfal Glades. Sprite darters converge on this circle to sing. It's a very interesting song so make sure you're playing with your volume on. I don't often have the volume on, particularly when I'm doing battle. I find a large amount of battle sounds annoying.

This used to be a random event, unpredictable as to when it would happen. Now, because a music scroll drops from the center, it occurs roughly every 30 minutes. The whole event lasts for 5 minutes. The sprite darters start assembling at the edge of the circle and start singing. Their song heads to the center. You click on that junction to get the scroll. If you look around, you'll see the deer of the forest, which are ravaged by the scourge, come to the edge of the circle and are untargetable. Once the event is over, you can kill them and, if you're standing on top of one, it will attack you. They are level 80 so it's easy to dispatch them.

You can find the circle by getting to the sewer entrance to Undercity. Once there, you'll need a flying mount. Fly west and a bit southwest. You'll come to an area of the map where there is a lake surrounded by forest. You might need to run around a bit south of the lake to find the circle. You'll need to devote a maximum of 30 minutes to wait for the event to start. When it's over, if you've never been here, jump into the lake just north of the center island and swim to the bottom. Any guesses on what that's doing there?

Monday, April 20, 2015

Suggestion Box

by Gimmlette


Blizzard has done a great job of adding to the very large roster of tameable pets. Several times during expansions, we will see yet another family becoming available for use. If you're a Beast Mastery hunter, you have 10 more families from which to choose a pet. In the Beast Mastery "exotic" roster are the two headed Core Hounds. I have a couple, the red named core hound from Upper Blackrock Spire, and the named purple core hound from Blackwing Lair.

Shown above is a void terror. This particular one prowls the Sunwell Plateau raid. These are considered part of the core hound family, but aren't tameable. Every time we come into Sunwell, we hunters think just how cool it would be to have one as our hunter pet. One of the problems with this particular family is that these aren't technically hounds. They are demons. It would not be out of character for a hunter to tame one of these. We do have, within the dog family, demon dogs and runed demon dogs, both of which can be tamed. I remember when the runed demon dogs were allowed to be tamed. I rushed out and got a blue one. They have a neat look. They are usually found with warlock mobs although they are not part of the demons warlocks can summon as pets. So there is precedent for allowing hunters to tame demons.

But if it would be out of character for hunters to use the void terrors as pets, why not add them to the warlock's stable? To the right in the photo above, you'll see a small void terror battle pet which was added to Sunwell in Patch 6.1. Everyone has the opportunity to get that. I can see not allowing hunters to tap into the shadow realm to summon a void terror but it would be awesome to have my gnome warlock summoning something 6 times her size. I'd even do a quest chain to be allowed to summon it.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Casually Guilded: A Guide to Resource Accumulation

Note:  I have been absent from posting anything to this blog due to a month of being excessively busy. Please accept my humble apology. More content will be coming soon. --Gimmlette

by Gimmlette


You saw it, I'm sure. In Patch 6.2, you're going to need 6,000 garrison resources to build the next big thing, a shipyard. You need 5,000 to build the thing and 1,000 to make it operational. After BlizzardWatch reported this, Blizzard attempted to walk back the number.

WarcraftDevs @WarcraftDevs@BlizzardWatch It is a placeholder amount. We'll lower it for an upcoming build to avoid further confusion.

While they say they are lowering it, I wouldn't be surprised if the 6,000 figure sticks. You need to have a level 3 garrison to build the shipyard. Once you get to level 3, making the required amount of resources should not be a problem. I routinely max out my resources 4-5 times per week. That's 10,000 resources, regularly, even if I use up a chunk of them. Let me tell you how I do it. 

First of all, I am not spending resources. I don't have anything I'm desperate to obtain which needs resources. I recommend that unless you have things you need to spend resources for, don't spend them until you have 6k. "Need" is the operative word here. If you don't have 6,000 resources, save until you do. Don't spend any other than what you would use to send followers out on missions. Admittedly, if you are upgrading a garrison, your resources have to go towards that project. But you need to spend them there if you want the shipyard. Make sure you're spending your resources toward the things that lead towards the shipyard. 

Second, look at those missions. Here were my available missions for Thursday. 


I have a hierarchy of which missions to take. (I use the add-on Master Plan to see, at a glance, what I have available and whether I can be successful in completing it.) I'm working on the achievement, The Rarer The Better, so my first order of business, after gearing up any followers who need it, is to send them out on any rare missions. To me, it doesn't matter if it's a 645 or a 90 mission. If it's rare, I do it first. I am a bit over half-way toward the achievement so this order won't change any time soon.

Then, looking at my garrison resources at the upper right of the panel, I see that I don't really need resources. Even when I deploy all my followers, the amount of resources I have isn't going to get below 9800. So, gold is the next priority. (I'm saving for the hippo mount from the apexis vendor.) Then, I take any gear missions I have. Even a 570 level piece is gold in my bank. When that's done, I start taking the resource missions.

If my garrison resources are below 8,000, and they will be on Tuesday when I use resources to buy seals for raiding, I change the hierarchy of missions. The amount of resources I have on Tuesday determines if I use those or apexis crystals or a combination of each, to buy seals. My personal cut off is 8,000 resources. If I am below 8,000, then I flip flop the gold and garrison resource missions. Resources then come before gold in the hierarchy of what I do. Got that? Okay moving on. 

Your followers have been dispatched. Let's look around my garrison. Your first stop for resources should be the pile next to Sargent Crowler. 


The maximum amount allowed in this pile is 500. If you have a stack that looks like this, check your resource total before clicking on it. This stack will take whatever amount you have available up to 10,000. So, if you only need 322 resources to hit 10,000, that's all you're going to get out of this stack, regardless of how many have accumulated. I can't tell you the number of times I have failed to accumulate the full amount in the stack because I was close to the cap. Know before you click because you don't want to leave 100 resources simply because you're at the cap.

If you are accumulating resources, you'll want to let this pile go for over 12 hours so it can stockpile more. The resources accumulate over a 12 hour period. They won't accrue to 500 if you keep clicking on the pile. Click it once per log in session and let it be. It's tempting, oh is it tempting, but you get more resources if you click once and leave it alone. 

Next stop is my Trading Post. If you need resources, this is your single biggest help to gain them. As long as I have work orders going, I have resources out front waiting for me. 


Trading Post resources accumulate, period. So far, the most I have ever received was 850. There may be a cap; I would venture to say 1,000 would be a good guess. I've never hit that number to know. 

Trading Posts are medium-sized buildings. The Sha'tari quartermaster takes up residence inside and the trader who will ultimately allow you to make the auctioneer is inside with an insidious ! over his head. I really wish Blizzard would let you turn in the pieces of the auctioneer as you make them. I have them rattling around in my bags so, when I get a piece I can see if I've already made that or if I need this for the next step. I used to be able to sell my extra pieces but it seems the bottom has dropped out of that market, so I donate them to my guild. I don't remember if I can vendor the extra parts, which is an option if something doesn't sell and your guild mates don't want it. 

Anyway, you accumulate resources by trading in materials. 


It varies from day to day what materials will buy the work orders. You can't assign a follower to the Trading Post to increase your work orders. I check what's wanted every session. If the materials needed are something I have in abundance, then I take the order. If it's something, like leather, which I don't have much of, I will pass this over because I don't really need the resources. 

Taking the work orders depends upon what you're using your materials for and whether you are pushing resource accumulation. The nice thing about Trading Post resources and resources from missions, you can't accept the full amounts if doing so puts you over the cap. You'll have a mission you can't complete and you'll have a stack of boxes in front of your Trading Post you can't remove. I've found that I sometimes can't start new work orders if I have resources out front I haven't picked up. Sometimes I can, however. 

There are other ways to get resources. An invasion of a garrison can net you around 150 or more resources if you get a gold rating. Invasions are huge fun. I see people asking in General Chat for help with invasions. You can only get loot once per week, however. 


A lumber mill returns resources. I don't have one of those so I don't know how much it provides. Doing the daily dungeon quest nets 175 resources, but finding a group is a challenge so I don't consider this a reliable method, particularly if you're dps. Most rares will drop resources when killed. Some will drop tokens with additional resources. Once you kill a rare out in the world, it ceases to become rare and won't drop any more resources. Rare farming, which you can do in the areas where apexis dailies are, is not a reliable way to gather resources, although some rares are great for testing your soloing capabilities. 

Many treasure chests contain resources. But some, even when I see them on the map, are nearly impossible to find. Perhaps utilizing a mapping add-on like Tom Tom would help, but if I can't see them, I can't see them. I don't find this reliable. Another unreliable source, but it's worth a mention, is fishing pools. I've fished resources out of pools while going for the fish in those pools. All of these, excepting the lumber mill, should be considered supplemental sources. 

It took some time to get to 8,000 resources. I used to hear, in guild chat, people talking about being resource starved. I never was. I assessed what was important to me and spent my resources accordingly. I didn't upgrade buildings until I was 500 resources over what was needed. I think that helped me get to, and stay at, the cap. 

I hope you find this helpful. If I've forgotten any other way to get resources, please let us know in the comments. And, if you have a lumber mill, how many resources do you get? 

Monday, April 13, 2015

Suggestion Box

by Gimmlette


Ah the mines. Those men are hard at work pulling up the random node for me to mine and mining ore to be stacked by the mining shed outside. When you log into your garrison for the first time in a 24 hour period, you'll see all these lovely yellow dots sprinkled about your mini-map. For me, those dots are a distraction. Even if I don't need ore, they compel me to mine it just to get the mini map cleared. There is the same issue with the herb garden. Lots of dots that scream, "Pick me!"

What I'd like to see is the opportunity to give the gardeners and the miners a day off. For heavy population servers, not having more stacks of ore or herbs dumped into the Auction House could improve the selling price for both, given the nature of supply and demand. For those of us who just want a clean mini-map without having stacks of stuff we aren't going to use, this would be lovely. Maybe the crew in the mine hangs out in the garrison barracks or around the table in your town hall. There are a number of places within the garrison you could have groups of people congregate.

I like to think I'm a benevolent ruler. It does kind of pain me to run into the mine and realize these men (And why are they all human males? Hmmmmm? Dwarves love to mine. There are no dwarven miners, no women, no gnomes or worgen or pandas or night elves. Mining is only a human male trait?) never get to see the light of day. If you've ever run into your garrison during an invasion, they are working away as if they haven't a care in the world. I'd really like for them to have a day off.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Suggestion Box

by Gimmlette


During the Darkmoon Faire, one of the games, as you know, is to be shot out of a cannon. There's an achievement if you can hit the target smack dab in the middle. The Darkmoon Faire can provide a large number of selfie opportunities, with its Mardi Gras theme and nooks and crannies. But one thing you can't do is take a selfie when you're shot out of the cannon.

I see why. When you're in the air, you control when the wings release on your kite. This allows you to hit the target based on your perception of where you are relative to the target. It's rare that I score a bullseye anymore. I was never a good judge of where I am relative to where I need to be. The buttons for releasing the kite occupy the same buttons used for the selfie camera. There would have to be additional coding in order to have one or the other shift. I would say, shift the camera buttons since that was added a long time after the faire.

I think this is an egregious oversight on Blizzard's part. The look on a toon's face could be priceless and the potential for selfies enormous. But, as with other ideas we've had, it would require some coding that could be dedicated to other areas such as fixing things that don't work. On a side note, you can't take selfies when you're falling, even if you're falling a very long distance. Yes, we would be the guild that has tried it.