Category: Gaming

There is a website called DataForAzeroth.com that I am addicted to. It takes statistics from your account and pits you against others on your server, ranking you. It’s silly and fun, and for people like me who absolutely love statistics, it is a neat way to find motivation and inspiration when it comes to finding ‘stuff’ to do. Especially at the end of an expansion, like we’re facing right now.

You can see I lead the ranks on Winterhoof for alts at level 60 (I have 21 of them, soon to be 22 I hope). I’m also pretty far ahead on pets, but I know there’s still a lot I haven’t done. What surprised me was the high score on recipes (for Winterhoof at least, we’re joined with Kilrogg, and they have far more). This motivated me to work on my blacksmith and collect some recipes that she was lacking. Now that crafting has their own ranks per expansion, it’s much more difficult to level, and much more expensive. Finding Outlands materials cost me around 50k. Next? Northrend. It takes a lot of materials to level through that one, so I’ll be a while.

I like having these little goals and blips of things to do. That’s what keeps me playing (psst, Blizzard, add player housing, that’ll keep me playing too) when we’re at the tail end of things to do. Of course I’m also working on making gold in between all of these things, but they sort of go hand in hand. Are you a statistic buff in your game of choice? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Season 4, I rarely ever check out the PTR to test things out unless they’re gold making related, and we’ve been so focused on the auction house merge (9.2.7) that most of the changes were a pleasant surprise. The first thing I did was queue for LFR – they’re fated, so we did Castle Nathria. At the start, they were also under tuned, and VERY simple. We were clearing the LFR versions within 5 minutes of entering (this has since been fixed). My paladin (who was healing) managed to pick up a handful of 265 gear, and completed the requirements for vault. Then I took those pieces over to ZM, placed them in the giant machine, and turned them into set gear. I had no idea I could even do this.

Next it was time to take down the world boss, who apparently has a higher chance at dropping loot now – just not for my characters. I’ve completed it on almost all 12 of my alts and the loot has so far evaded me. On the plus side it was nice anima, something I can always use more of.

Blizzard also recently mentioned they’ll be changing how /follow works in the future and into Dragonflight. This is another step in preventing / slowing boosting. Right now, if two people use a weak aura one can send a /follow command and the second account will follow. I use something similar when I multibox. Blizzard will be disabling this feature so that you have to manually type follow or hit your macro or whatever other means that has a physical input from the follower rather than the person being followed. This is both good and bad. Bad because it does harm visually impaired gamers who use the follow API as it was intended, especially in raids. Good, because it does target boosters. The thing is, I think Blizzard is taking the easy way out, again. Instead of targeting boosters directly, they’ve found yet another ‘easier’ solution that makes it LOOK like they’re targeting the right people. You can read all about it in this thread, and why it’s an important accessibility issue.

One of the biggest reasons that I’m never able to settle on a main is that I truly honestly enjoy playing all of the characters that I have. There are 4-5 that I play on a ‘regular’ basis, and I have a hard time trying to decide which of those characters I’d prefer to play more. Yesterday I thought that the druid was a good choice, and I was trying to figure out which professions I wanted to settle on (she has always just been a harvesting character, which I don’t know that I want to pursue once the AH merges region wide in 9.2.7) – and while contemplating that, I started falling in love (again) with my paladin. My paladin has been my ‘main’ (I use the term here simply as the character I have played the most) through most of Shadowlands. I enjoy how plate looks, and the class is a lot of fun. She’s also my blacksmith/alchemist, so that makes things interesting. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to swap out the druid, and try to pursue things as my paladin.

That meant doing two LFR (as a healer, no less!) and completing the timewalking dungeons (I still have two more to go at the time of this post, but I’m confident I can make it) and spending some time actually playing the game.

The thing is, there’s also my monk, waiting in the wings. I love the monk, I love classes that have options (tank, dps, healer) and the only downside to that character is I’m a bit bored of always playing leather wearers. Plate would actually be a change, for me. I tend to cycle through a demon hunter, a monk, and a druid. Go figure.

Next? Well, I haven’t finished working up blacksmithing (or alchemy) and I’m always looking to do some farming, and I need to finish my covenant quests (I’m 80, but that doesn’t mean much). I do already have the legendary boots (291) and the belt, so that is taken care of at least. I suppose the rest will come with time – if I decide to actually stick this out. We’ll just have to see.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

For years now, I’ve always envied people who were able to settle down and just stick with one character – therefor actually accomplishing things in game because their attention isn’t on 24 characters spread between two servers. My husband is a great example of this. He has a warrior, and has played that single character for years. He has no-longer-available gear and recipes, meanwhile I can barely settle on who to play for a single day, let alone any length of time. With my limited play time, this is frustrating. It means I finish things very slowly, if ever at all. I still haven’t even unlocked all of the allied races because that would mean completing the story lines. I also don’t have any of my class mounts.

I have 24 level 60 characters in various stages of completion all over the place.

I’d like to change that. I’d like to settle down, and play just one character. At least until Dragonflight releases and then we’re presented with not only a new race, but a new class. A new healer/ranged DPS class. Sounds fun, right?

I did LFR this week, so that I could get a vault option. I did timewalking for an upgraded piece of gear (I got boots), and next is to work through the ZM storyline so I can unlock the 2nd legendary (and maybe think about getting my first legednary. For the druid, that means a ring). Will this hyper-focus on one character last? Probably not. I’ve tried this a few times, and it never lasts. I’m never able to make it stick, for whatever reason. Ever since my EQ2 days I’ve never had a ‘main’ instead trying to play what everyone else wanted me to play.

If it doesn’t work, then no big deal, I’ll go back to getting some stuff done on everyone and nothing done on just one character. I am hoping this time will be different, but the community I joined in WoW has dissipated for now and it makes for lonely times. Still, I have to try!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.