Out And About

by Zylostout

Wow, look at all those balloons! He must be having a party, right? Looks like the Grummle just made a delivery, probably food and drink. Maybe I can sneak in once the other guests start to arrive...or maybe he's just lonely and needs to be cheered up.
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Gimmlette here. I was enamored by the photo so I set out to find this place. You need to go north of Sri-La Village along the coast. Once you're there, you'll find a fox named "Dig" in addition to a Grummle.

The Grummle is confused as to how he arrived at this location. I think I would be, too.

Go inside and talk to Kar.

I accidentally hit my auto run button and he said, "Slow down. Life is to be savored." I know the phrases are random, but that caught me by surprise. Then, when I clicked on him, in addition to the text he said, "You have the eyes of one who has traveled much."

I stood there and waited for the house to take off. Alas, it doesn't. Thanks, Zylo, for sending this in. Kar's got a great view, a lovely little home, one you could visit often even if he is a bit surly.

Suggestion Box

by Gimmlette

Spectacular Death has been spending quite a bit of time since October, running Ulduar to gear members up for attempts to get the Herald of the Titans achievement. With this achievement, the toon cannot be over level 80, nor can its gear be over ilevel 226 or weapons over 232. The battle is hard and one extra best in slot piece can add just enough to help push the group through.

If you skipped Ulduar, the fight starts at the formation grounds. You pick up vehicles and move across this area to the location of the first boss, Flame Leviathan. You had three machines you could ride; a motorcycle, a siege engine to the left, or these siege demolishers on which most of us are riding. Each had strengths and weaknesses.

At the time Ulduar was released the idea of mounted combat was very new to the game. The talk was that if this took off, Blizzard would consider adding more mounted combat. From the start of Wrath of the Lich King, you could ride siege engines and demolishers in the hugely popular Wintergrasp battleground. Ulduar would just continue that, but put it against actual foes and not a stationary building.

Alas, more people hated it than liked it. I remember reading there had been data-mined a vehicle combat in Icecrown but that was quickly scrapped when the player base overwhelmingly complained about these machines. When taken with the Argent Tournament jousting dailies, players took to the forums en mass to protest. They hated mounted combat. Personally, I like the machines of Ulduar. I think the whole raid suffered from the arrival, too soon after Ulduar was released, of Trial of the Crusader, which is a faster, more contained, raid. Why spend 2-3 nights here when you could spend 2-3 hours and clear a place with better gear?

As we formed up for yet another run, we were ruminating about all these points. I'm not the only person who likes this first encounter. Kegenstein took the idea further and proposed a demolition derby style event. You'd ride engines like the demolishers. You could go solo or with a friend. You'd need to clear the towers off the battlefield, getting a point for each tower you topple. Once the towers were down, it was head-to-head with an opponent to destroy their machine before they destroyed yours. You could play with a friend, with the computer or with a random player. You could also group up and run a 5-man even just like arena, but with tanks.

We like the idea of getting to ram other players or computerized players. As with Ulduar, there could be 3 types of machines. You'd need to score a win in all levels of play to get a mount. We're not sure what the mount would be. Your own personal siege engine would cause all sorts of anger when some griefer parks his on top of the mailbox or quest giver. Plus, they don't fit in the door of any building, but you know people will try. The way around that is to make the no mount zone we've seen on Khadgar apply to quest givers and mailboxes. Would you also receive honor as you do with PvP since the ability to play against other players is there? That seems to be a logical reward.

So that's today's suggestion. Would you participate in a demolition derby-style event if Blizzard put it into the game?

Serial Saturday

By Gimmlette

(Several years ago, I started this work of fan fiction involving the members of Spectacular Death. It's languished in the guild forums ever since. Many of the names contained in the story no long play WOW. Weekends can be quiet so here is presented, like the serialized stories of old, our guild story entitled, "If Only...")

Chapter One

There we were, minding our own business; Skipperdo, Superkind, Junas and Gimmlette; taking a stroll through Elwynn Forest. It was a lovely sunny morning and we were on our way to Westfall, as we heard some horde were making life miserable for lowbies just trying to find Goretusks with livers.

Suddenly, a long, low growl came from our left and Superkind was uncatted (He doesn't ride a horse) by a figure covered in tattered clothing and smelling like last week's meatloaf. Being an agile night elf, Superkind was able to tumble nimbly away from his attacker, but we were shocked to see it was...

HOGGER!

This was no ordinary Hogger, at least not the one who terrified us in our level 10 dreams. Sweat glistened off his fur. His muscles rippled with anticipation and excitement. And what muscles these were. It was clear the rumors were true. Hogger was taking performance enhancers, probably courtesy of the alchemists in Undercity.

Junas reined his horse and whirled it around, jumping off in one fluid motion. The ground crackled with the bright light of a spell and Hogger's attention turned immediately to the paladin running toward him. Superkind's raptor appeared instantly by his master's side and roared angrily, charging into combat. Superkind leveled his gun and aimed squarely at the broad backside of the beast. He fired, hitting Hogger with a blast that echoed off the nearby Westfall Brigade Tower.

Gimmlette and Skipperdo stopped their mounts as Junas raced backwards past them. They quickly dismounted and watched as Hogger started to grow in size and turn blood red. Enraged! Oh lord! Who knows what was in that stuff he was rumored to be drinking? This wasn't good.

UrsaMajor, Gimmlette's bear, charged into combat, adding a ferocious stomp to Junas' spell. The usually effective bear stun vanished as quickly as it came. Gimmlette loaded a magicked arrow and sent a tranquilizing shot toward the enraged gnoll. The maddened mob turned his attention on the dwarf. How dare she remove his carefully planned enrage. Ignoring the paladin and his perfectly timed blows, Hogger charged the dwarf. Her eyes grew large in terror and she attempted to feign death, but not before Hogger swung one muscled arm in her direction, sending her flying into the fence opposite her position. That taste...oh dear...that was blood. Lie still. Gather her wits. Think.

Skipperdo sized up the situation. This was not the Hogger we all laughed about in the Pig and Whistle in Stormwind. This was an unholy Hogger; a Hogger sent by Arthas himself to pillage and plunder. Elwynn must be purged of such a fiendish beast. While Hogger was occupied with Junas, Skipperdo began reciting to a very ancient yet reliable spell. When the beast charged Gimmlette and threw her against the fence, a blast of arcane magic shot from Skipperdo's fingers. Hogger howled as the purplish bluish magic engulfed him, singeing his fur. Skipperdo froze the beast in place and followed with a barrage of arcane missiles, shooting from his outstretched hands.

Gimmlette struggled to her feet, half her health gone. Superkind was pumping shot into the monster and it was still standing. Why? It was just Hogger. Junas charged the frozen-in-place gnoll and the ice melted around his feet. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Junas bashed Hogger with his shield, the magic from the shield cracking the air. Hogger roared, grabbed Junas by the shield and shoved him backwards. Junas slid along the ground, carving a small trench in the roadway.

Hogger turned towards the mage. "Um...guys," Skipperdo said shakily, "I don't like the look in his eyes." Hogger let out a massive roar and charged the gnome. Skipperdo, waiting until the last possible second, "blinked", showing up on the other side of the roadway. The smoke from moving so fast swirled around his hat. More arcane missiles leaped at Hogger who crashed through the fence where Skipperdo had been standing.

Suddenly, the missiles stopped. "Uh oh...out of mana," Skipperdo wailed. He took off running down the road toward the tower. "I'll go get help while my mana regenerates."

Gimmlette quickly downed a Super Health Potion and rued not swinging by the bank before leaving Stormwind to make some Runic Health Potions, as she was all out of them. She spoke some words and UrsaMajor grew to twice his size. The bear let loose a deafening roar and swiped at the gnoll. Superkind's raptor raked and clawed and chomped. To everyone's horror, however, Hogger ignored the pets and leaped after the fleeing gnome, landing squarely on top of Skipperdo. There was a groan and then nothing; no twitch, no sound. Skipperdo's hat crumpled across his face.

(To be continued...)

Casually Guilded: Making Money

by Gimmlette

Making money can be one of the most frustrating things in this game. Everything takes coin. When you hit the major cities, there are all sorts of enticements for you to buy. If you get into Transmog gear, or collecting pets and mounts, the costs can add up on top of the money necessary for you to not run everywhere or to fly fast enough to get to Galleon before he dies. It took me 4 months, but I managed to save enough to buy the Alliance chopper added in Warlords. Let me tell you how I did it.

First, let's look at a brand new character.

I have a brand new dwarf shaman here. New toons start out with the clothes on their back, a backpack and a hearthstone. You have zero copper to your name. Start your drive to 1 or 100,000 gold by taking quests. Take every quest you can.

If you are at some location where there are a number of quests, chances are very good they are all in the same place. If there is a quest that says, for instance, "Take this letter to Ironforge", it's going to take you away from completing the rest of those quests. Don't take that one. Finish all of these and then take the quest that tells you to go somewhere else. Sometimes, you'll be sent back, but not always. Then you have old quests in your log. Clear them out before moving on.

Be sure you know what you're asked to do. Yes, that does mean you'll have to read a bit of the quest text, but if you know you have this one, involving Rockjaw invaders and one to pick up archeology fragments and one to find beer and it's all in the same place, you will save time. Plus, you have an idea of what you're going to make.

Turn everything in at once. Don't take any follow up quests until you've turned everything in. Then you can assess if you want to do the follow-up quests. I am a completionist so I'll generally do them, but if you have leveled by turning in quests, it might be to your benefit to go to the Hero Board in a capital city to see where it sends you. Higher level quests have bigger rewards. That's your call as to how much you want to do in any given location.

Loot everything; every little thing. The Rockjaw Thumpers dropped only gold, but as you get higher level, you'll start getting all sorts of junk on the mobs. Loot it all. Stacks of the most ridiculous gray items can vendor for a surprising amount of gold.

Here's one of Gimm's bags.

I vendor every gray and white item I get. Green and blue gear is sent to a bank alt to be put in the Auction House. I put it up once and if it doesn't sell, it gets vendored. I don't need it disenchanted because my enchanter has a boatload of materials. The gold is more valuable to me.

With Warlords, you can see, at a glance, what is considered vendor trash and what might be something you want to save. If you have outfitted your toon with heirloom gear, then selling any and all gear they get, unless you want it for Transmog, will net you a nice sum. It all adds up over time.

One of the people in my guild with a large number of alts says that power leveling with heirlooms and without spending money other than for the basic mounts and mount speeds you need to get around, will net you 15,000 gold when you reach 100. I can't confirm this but it seems like it could be true. When I sold everything I felt I didn't need on this toon, I had 7.5 silver for 45 minutes work. That's not too shabby. She is not wearing heirlooms so the total could have been more if I'd sold the gear she got as drops and as quest rewards.

Don't hesitate to use money as a guide to which piece of gear you should take from rewards. Mobs at low levels are pushovers and you can easily take on mobs 2-3 levels higher than you in just what you get as quest rewards. You will want to upgrade gear every 5 levels, or so, but if you are power leveling, those levels will go by very fast.

Dailies are another source of fairly easy income. Low level toons can do the fishing and cooking dailies in the major cities. Hubs in Mists of Pandaria, such as here at Niuzao Temple, have multiple dailies in one location. You can easily clear 50 gold from these hubs; sometimes over 100 depending upon what the mobs have on them which can be vendored. Dailies are designed to be reasonably quick with a good payout. Once you learn where everything required is, you can bang out quite a few in a couple hours.

Finally, you can play the Auction House, particularly if you get a blue or purple bind on equip piece. Unusual pieces are sought after for transmog and can pad your coinage totals very nicely. Other people find the auction house to be great fun, for figuring out which materials to buy low and sell high. If you have gathering professions, selling the raw materials makes money, but not in vast quantities unless you happen to be on a low population server where people are leveling a lot of alts. That being said, all it takes is one person to be looking for Dreamfoil or Fel Iron or embersilk and they will pay whatever price you have listed for the materials. If you choose to "play" the Auction House, get an add-on to help you and read the Undermine Journal.

Do not buy gold. That is an offense which will get you banned. Also, don't pay money for a leveling service. Those are not a prevalent as the gold offers, but they are still there. You don't need a leveling service. Even if you have 2 hours per week to spend trying to make gold, you can do it without paying someone. You have to give them personal information, too, which can compromise your computer. Just don't.

I find money fairly easy to make in this expansion. It's not boatloads of money and it's not instant, but in the 2 weeks since spending 100,000 to buy my Alliance chopper, leaving me with 250 gold, I've made 9,000. There are a lot more suggestions for making gold on web sites such as WOWHead.

As a casual player, you have just a limited amount of time to do all this game has to offer. Having more than what amounts to pocket lint can make the whole gaming experience much better. I hope these suggestions will help you add to your wallet.