Enchantment prices (and LFR)

The PuG update: Ultraxion down (no screenshot as there is no corpse). 2 healers setup. We are currently #12500, as no one can farm on first week, this is the baseline. If I'm right and farming is just wasting precious raid time, we'll elevate, if I'm wrong and gear is needed, we'll slip back.

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I can't help being totally amused by the inability of the masses to learn from their own mistakes. Every single gear reset brings the enchantment prices to stellar levels. Despite they always pay premium price for enchantments, people still can't don't stack them up before the patch.

It isn't hard to estimate the enchantment demand. You can buy a scroll to every slot and store it in the bank. There shouldn't be price jump on patch day. The message for today is short, simple but essential: look beyond your nose! Stock up for your own use even if you are not speculating with the items.

Of course you can also get lot of gold selling the items that the unprepared people buy. But that's hardly new to any AH player. Stormforged shoulders are still our friends.

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The LFR feature is a positive surprise, despite it deserve its nickname "looking for retard". Below-tank DPS is common, the average raid DPS is 15K. However there are surprisingly few dance fails, it explains why Blizzard stick to the dance: it provide "I did it" feeling to 12K DPS players too. After all, it needs no brain, just hand-eye coordination. We cleared the first 4 bosses in 1:40. It is 25-men and provides ilvl 384 PvE gear with 250 valor at the end. So it's completely viable way to gear up. Just don't be surprised when 3 oozes with half HP reach Yor'sah. This is part of the deal.

Dragon soul disaster

I'm honestly surprised by Blizzards total failure with designing Dragon Soul raid. There is no design shift from the failed FL (they acknowledged it to be a mistake), just nerfed it all over the place. The dance is still the source of difficulty in the game, performance demands are non-existing in normal modes.

The dance being easier makes it less annoying, but "less annoying" is not fun. Also, they also acknowledged that WotLK design was bad, but they returned to exactly that. Dragon Soul is like Naxxramas which is more or less a curse word among the players.

LFR difficulty is here exactly to cater those who can't damage more than the healer, so I completely don't understand the purpose of the very easy normal mode. I simply smell panic. The subscription numbers are dropping and they want to stop it. They could, but not in a way that has already failed. Maybe WoW has less time to live than I expected. Maybe they go free to play before my 1 year subscription end. Too bad.

Then, Ultraxion saved the day. For the first time since Halfus HC we wiped not because someone mis-stepped or did not do some weird move in 0.5 secs, but because of low DPS. It was great to play WoW again instead of Super Mario. The best attempt was 6% HP, he will die soon. As soon as people start to do things that they did not bother for long. Min-maxing, reading up rotations, optimizing for buffs. I don't blame them that they forgot it over a year of dancing. But I do blame them if they stay that way. There is at least one good boss again. There can be more. It would be a shame not to have them all down.

The most useless stat ever

In Diablo III gear can have several stats. Magic Find is one. This stat will take the place of other useful stats, so the Magic Find gear will provide lower damage and survival than "normal" gear. This is mostly a dummy stat, the item with MF is simply disenchant fodder.

Yet I'm sure we'll make our biggest sells with this crap. Why? Because our best buyers, the M&S - by definition - is unable to understand the game mechanics, or simply doesn't care. What is the problem? You can obviously kill stronger monsters in normal gear than in magic find. So why don't you kill those?

The only place where magic find would have any use is a stonewall boss. A boss that is much-much stronger than anything before. So you could massacre earlier monsters but can't kill him. So you farm best gear from the old ones. Considering previous experience with Blizzard games and official communication about Diablo III, they don't want to place stonewalls into the game, want even casual players to complete it.

So while arthasdklol farms lvl 32 monsters "for cool stuffz", the smart ones will be killing lvl 35 ones (assuming the same time commitment). The same scheme goes up to the last endboss. After the endboss, there is no game. Diablo III is not an MMO, it's a single-line game, after you kill the endboss, you get a "you won" cinematic and game over.

Who would want MF gear? At first "professional" farmers. The "" means that they are not just standard goldsellers, but players who came up with the bizarre idea of getting a steady real money income by playing the game. So after they killed the endboss, they will start farming the world elites for gear and sell it. They would need MF gear, but they won't buy it. They want to sell, not to buy. Their scheme is to farm for money, so they will farm their own MF gear.

The other group is the one that will make us rich: the M&S who "need" better gear to "progress". These kiddies will farm the second or third difficulty to "get geared" for the last. They will buy the MF gear.

Also, there will be punks who want BiS after the game is over, so they can't even theoretically use it. They just want it to show off. However I doubt if they will buy MF, they will buy the "l33t stuffz" themselves.

There is one group I can imagine that will use MF gear for good: hardcore characters that advance extremely carefully not to be killed. Such guy farms safe monsters until he is geared enough to consider the next area safe (here "safe" is way beyond "doable" which is enough for normal progression). Too bad that such characters can't use the real money AH.

So the suggestion for today: if you get a piece of MF in Diablo III, check for the AH if you can sell it well. Probably you can. Just don't ever try to use that crap, keep that privilege to the M&S!

Another 2 bite the dust

The dance demand is easier than in FL, the performance demand is simply atrocious. I'm sure that the first 4 could be cleared in 346 blues. Naxxramas is fully back. We are of course recruiting to clear the same in hard mode too. We are currently #14K with not raiding on Wednesday.

How far would they go for pixels?

The PuG update: 2 bosses down. We could not raid on Wednesday, Thursday was out first raid. The first 2 boss were atrocious. They did not even deserve a screenshot. I mean we had 4 melee, one of them pretty new and 1/3 of the healers was my girlfriend's smallest alt in 361. I checked if we are in LFR despite LFR is not available on 10. Naxxramas is back. Bleh!

Warlord Zonozz on the other hand is still alive, despite a 15% try. The sphere has a tendency of hitting the tank. Bit of practice and he will join the rest. I'm quite sure we'll be doing hard modes next week (like everyone else).

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Rohan wrote an ironic but clearly true questgiver conversation about the destruction of Theramore, the city ran by the most positive and likable character of the WoW Lore: Jaina. She fought with us in several raids and instances, she was always working for peace between the factions, so it's unlikely that any player would want here dead. Yet, Rohan is right about player reactions:

Garrosh Hellscream (questgiver): - Lok'tar Ogar, Champion of the Horde, Slayer of Deathwing! The Alliance have held us back for too long. Even now their armies encroach upon our territories, and kill our soldiers. It is time for us to deal with the main Alliance stronghold on Kalimdor. Your orders are to sack Theramore, destroy their ability to threaten us, and eliminate their leader, the mage Jaina Proudmoore.
Horde Player: - What!?! Are you mad? This is an atrocity, an act of war. It is stupid and short-sighted! I will not do this.
Garrosh Hellscream: - I offer you this epic weapon, Champion, and this rare striped kitten. It is not just any kitten, it is a Kitten of the Horde!
Horde Player: - Theramore will burn, Warchief! The men and women will be put to the sword, and their children enslaved. Also, I would also like a gemstone collar for my kitten.

The morality of quests are discussed several times in blogs, especially since the torture quests. However all these could be dismissed as "no real evil" has to be done, as you are just hurting pixels. I find it unacceptable as everything in the game is pixels, including your avatar. Is corpsecamping a lvl 11 pixel wrong?

However the above quest gave me a very nasty idea to prove that the M&S, the people who are "in need of help" according to the socialists are obnoxious, amoral and disgusting beings. I will be the evil questgiver. I will offer on /trade 1000G for random players if they say something real-world-disgusting (racist, sexist, hateful) on a public channel. I will only recruit lvl 85s, so no one can feel himself "anonymous trollololo" behind a lvl1 alt. They will have to stand behind the obnoxious things with their online persona, guild tag, everything.

What do you think? Will I fail to find such people, or will I go broke in an hour? And more importantly, will they be successful raiders, high level PvP-ers or ungemmed morons?

The only way to stop ignorance is to write

Playing RBGs with non-fixed roster is a constant exposure to stupid behavior. Currently - and probably until being able to form two groups - we are condemned to play in the 1400-1600 range, which is - by definition - average. We can argue what is the basis where we are average, as most people did not use rated BGs, hence Blizzard changed it to 10-men only and allowed skipping them while maxing conquest. Being average among the top 10% isn't bad, but it's not the point today.

The points are the fails themselves. I often see terribly stupid mistakes, ones I would never do. My gut reaction is calling him idiot. But it doesn't help in any way. Then what? Are we condemned to have a fixed roster or to boost a collection of failers forever? Far from it.

The solution is writing. I constantly update the Rated BG Strategies page. I will include every mistake I encountered and advise not to do it.

The term "morons and slackers" is not and cannot relate to intelligence or previous experience. A system where someone without prior knowledge appears as a M&S, is elitist and classist. You either have the needed knowledge or you don't and then it's game over. Game can't be over for someone who is not an idiot or lazy.

"Morons and slackers" can only refer to someone who refuses to use or to accept the resources available for improving. Someone who runs away from the group in Warsong to intercept the EFC is not an "idiot" or "useless". He is ignorant. If there is resource available to him that tells him not to do so, and he still does it (either because he didn't read or he did not care), he is useless.

The written resources are something that must exist to call anyone M&S. If you are pointed to a class guide and you still have Str plate as holy paladin "lulz higher ilvl", you are M&S. If there is no guide, you are just new, unlucky.

The efficient goblin is halfway between liberals-socialists and conservatives. Conservatives condemn you for breaking rules never trained to you. Liberals-socialists would call you "unlucky who needs help" after making the same mistake several times despite specifically told not to. A goblin gives a chance, a guidance in form of written information, not because he is nice, but because someone without prior knowledge can be useful after training, it would be a waste to lose him. A goblin however doesn't tolerate laziness and refusal of following the info given to you. If you run the wrong way in a BG, I show you the info page. If you run the wrong way again, I replace you.

Failure must have consequence or the leeching M&S will keep on feasting on us. But there must always be information available how to fix failures if one wants to.

Some failures are funny to us. I mean what's the point of writing a "don't use it to dry wet animals" on  the microwave oven"? Only a retard would do it! No. Someone with our knowledge about modern tools needed to be mentally ill to do it, that's true. But an old woman who was schooled before the invention of these machines could reasonably believe that "it's another heater machine like the hair dryer". So it is possible for you to find funny items on the page. Feel free to laugh. I rather add a "stupid" mistake to the list than lose a match to a new player doing it.