Big World of Warcraft weekend, what with the big new patch and all; The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Now I don’t know what it’s like over in the Colonies, but back in the Old World, the main feature this patch seems to have added is massive server overcrowding and hardware failures, with almost all of the established European English servers reporting ‘Full’, and as a result, the few newer servers suddenly gaining huge login queues, as we the addicted seek our fix as newbies on temporary servers.
I did the same, unable to get at my usual character (L49 Troll Warrior) on Rune-Totem, and decided to roll up a Human Paladin, to see what all these new bits and pieces for them were all about, and I do not exaggerate when I say that Northshire Abbey, the Human newbie bit, had something like 40 level 1 humans, all dashing about and quite literally scouring the surrounding woods to the point of mob extinction – poor server honestly could not spawn Kobold Vermin fast enough to keep up. Mad!
This must be like what the Americans first exprienced on US release, all those months ago, and it's a bit worrying to see that Blizzard (and partners) still haven't gotten it nailed yet.
I pottered about on the newbie server briefly, enjoying some quality Elwynn Forest [General] Chat Venting ('BLIZZ SUX!! FIX [server name here] NOWPLZ!!1!1"), and then tried Rune-Totem again: no dice, and the server I'd just left now had a queue. I start a Human mage on another new server that I can get on. This process repeats and now I have a bit of a newbie army, and am frankly quite sick of the Northshire quests by now.
Still, I did get back on Rune-Totem in the end, and found the War Effort quests. These take the form of a massive server-wide collaborative resource gathering and crafting exercise; to provide an expeditionary force with supplies so they can go open these Gates of Ahn'Qiraj – a couple of new and most likely high-level zerg instances, in Silithus, an end-game zone. It'll all end in tears, you mark my words!
I love this kind of thing – large-scale co-operative building efforts for the Greater Good, with stats, tallies and progress reports, and immediately began to pitch in with carefree abandon. I’m not sure if EQ2 had anything like this, but I’ve seen similar in Jumpgate and of course the sadly departed Asheron’s Call 2. Strangely enough, EVE Online is almost entirely based on this kind of large-scale barn raising, but perhaps because the endeavours are set by greedy small-minded individuals, for greedy small minded individuals, it never quite appealed to me as much.
Not the War Effort in WoW is an entirely altruistic endeavour, mind you – handing in piles of resources gives you some pretty impressive magical item rewards anyway, which is just as well considering that many people harvesting for 'the cause', are unlikely to get much use out of the new instances themselves, and indeed, access to these new features for the powergaming raid-cliques seems to depend almost entirely on the pottering trade skill crafting classes – those of us who enjoy mining for fish in our spare time. I find that quite funny.
Another side effect of it all is that the economy, previously a stable and knowable thing, is now all over the place, as the hand-in-able resources skyrocket, and the subsequent over-abundance of magical items crashes that end of the market. Fun fun fun!
Anyway, I’m doing my bit, taking on the Mining, Bandages and Cooking ones as best I can, and getting a nebulous, yet warm, feeling of being Generally Quite Helpful for my troubles. I doubt it’ll be our server first though:
World of Warcraft: War Effort Rankings
Look at Medivh go! That has to be an organised effort – either that or there are some pretty damned selfless Chinese Gold Farmers on that thing.
Rune-Totem is listed down there in 0% place, which just means it’s down again, or broken or just sulking – who knows? I took some readings of my own last night though. These are the Rune-Totem Horde stats – I guess the Alliance have the same again to gather:
Heavy Leather: 10740/60000 (17.9% Done)
Rugged Leather: 19950/60000 (33.2% Done)
Thick Leather: 17980/80000 (22.5% Done)
Average: 24.5% Done.
Leather is one of the most abundant resources in the world, and is found on the corpses of any animal type mob, and gained as a side-effect of just killing stuff. Most players who choose leather-class characters (Shaman, Rogue, Druid, Hunter), will have the Skinning (and Leatherworking) skills, so they can make their own armour. Self-sufficiency 4TW!
Peacebloom: 8520/96000 (8.9% Done)
Firebloom: 3320/19000 (17.5% Done)
Purple Lotus: 3420/26000 (13.2% Done)
Average: 13.2% Done.
Herbalism (and Alchemy) are comparatively rare choices, allowing anyone to make buff and heal potions virtually on demand. The herbs are ground-spawn nodes scattered across the world with a fair frequency, but gathering them is a deliberate side-activity, separate from mob-whacking.
Copper Bars: 11480/90000 (12.8% Done)
Tin Bars: 4140/22000 (18.8% Done)
Mithril Bars: 12320/18000 (68.4% Done)
Average: 33.3% Done.
Mining feeds both Blacksmithing and Engineering, and is popular with Mail-class characters (Warriors, Paladins), but also anyone who wants to make weapons or gadgets. Like Herbs, the minerals appear in ground-spawn nodes, and harvesting requires a deliberate effort away from beating on things and people.
This is my chosen skill, although thinking about it, I wish I’d gone with Herbs/Alchemy now – loot weapons and armour are easy to come-by, but Warriors get precious little self-buff ability. The type of metal depends on the level of the zone you are in – Copper is Lv 1-15ish, Tin is Lv10-25 and Mithril is L35-50 or so – more people are higher levels. I do my bit and slum it for Copper and Tin as well though.
Lean Wolf Steak: 940/10000 (9.4% Done)
Spotted Yellowtail: 2880/17000 (16.9% Done)
Baked Salmon: 2040/10000 (20.4% Done)
Average: 15.6% Done
Cooking (and Fishing) are skills that everyone can do, but not everyone can be bothered to. The Wolf Steak is from a relatively rare recipe, and the two fish dishes require a very high fishing skill, an activity that I quite enjoy, but which does essentially amount to paying $10 a month to just stand about on a seashore. As noted by Tobold it’ll be this one that lets the side down. Herb gathering seems to be lower, but they have much bigger quotas to fill. Your Gates Need Fish!
Wool Bandage: 15380/250000 (6.2% Done)
Mageweave Bandage: 24380/250000 (9.8% Done)
Runecloth: 70000/400000 (17.5% Done)
Average: 11.2% Done
Bandages are something that everyone can make, and the raw material, cloth, is found as common loot on any ‘humanoid’ mobs, meaning that these will fill up quite quickly. It must suck to be a Tailor right now though, as they also need this resource. The popularity of this hand-in must have been anticipated though, as those are some truly huge totals – nearly half a million of the top-end bandages.
Total Horde Average: 19.56% Done.
(If some Alliance Rune-Totemer wants to comment with their numbers, I’d be fascinated to see how they’re doing. Not fascinated enough to go alt up and find out myself mind you.)
All good fun, and on top of that, the Darkmoon Faire is back, with yet more world-wide scavenger hunt quests. Busy busy!