Can u boost me?

I don't know where do these noobs spawn from. I hope they are NPC-s, created only to provide us challenges to overcome. However it must be hard to program a bot to have so much spelling errors.

[08:33:20] [Goretuskin] whispers: w8 (we were both in Orgrimmar)
[08:33:33] To [Goretuskin]: ?
[08:33:44] [Goretuskin] whispers: can u boost me at wc
[08:34:00] To [Goretuskin]: Of course I can (I have the level to make it, so I can)
[08:34:07] [Goretuskin] whispers: yay
[08:34:16] [Goretuskin] whispers: do i haved to give u mony
[08:34:21] To [Goretuskin]: No
[Goretuskin] has invited you to a group. (declined)
[08:34:44] [Goretuskin] whispers: r u gono boost me
[08:34:48] To [Goretuskin]: No
[08:35:33] To [Goretuskin]: Why would anyone waste his time with boosting a noob?
[08:36:08] [Goretuskin] whispers: err cuz its fun and u just gay and hrorrble
[08:36:30] To [Goretuskin]: Why?
[08:36:52] [Goretuskin] whispers: just go away if ur not going to boost me
[08:37:05] To [Goretuskin]: I'm already away (I already landed in STV)

Update: Gaming Diva reminded me of a hilarious forum topic: "Hey can you boost me in SM plx !"

Day 27: Revenge of the mess

Still lvl 35, not a single XP bigger than yesterday. Focused mainly on business, the best sellers were enchanting materials. I invested a lot into Wool Cloth (offered to hordies) and copper-tin to create lot of bronze bars. Same with iron and steel.

I sold all my expert cookbook, so Thelnia sent back a box. When she did it, noticed, that 3 boxes of cloth and leather rot in her mailbox, bought last week to sell in the weekends and of course totally forgot. While my bank is usually clean, these boxes of goods failed to make profit for a whole week just because of being careless...

Daily account balance 1573G, 148 auctions, 35 bids, 1350G at Thelnia.

Are you prepared?

Since the expansion date is coming, most guilds stopped raiding. While the thrill of the challenge still here, most play for loot, and Northrend blues are matching BC endgame epics.

So what can you do? Prepare.
How?


1) Money: there will still be vendors in Northrend and people will still be selling their stuff for money. According to WotLKwiki, most of the profession-crafted items will be BoE, so you will be able to buy these items (or their ingredients). You can make money from daily quests and AH trading. The more you have, the more items will you be able to buy. Maybe you can do some big investment that makes you rich when expansion (or the patch before) comes out.


2) Honor: Blizzard canceled the plan of deleting honor points when expansion comes out, you will be able to buy PvP items on lvl80. It's announced that their prices will be high, so it's assumed that honor will be inflated, items will be more expensive and lvl80 PvP gives more honor. However honor points still worth something so if you have nothing else to do or enjoy PvP, you can stockpile honor (beware of the 75K honor cap).

Tip: stockpile PvP tokens too. It's quite possible, that on lvl 80 there will be a new repeatable quest that provide inflated honor for PvP tokens. So you should not change the tokens into honor on 70.


3) Professions: the epic recipe you farmed so much / were so lucky to get, is soon worth nothing to anyone except twinks. So it is time to rethink what do you expect from your profession. There are two good, one debatable and several bad reasons to make your choice. If you made it, don't hesitate to perform the change, relevel your new profession now, when materials are widely available! The reasons:

• financial: how much money will I make from these professions? If you choose profession based on money, you will be rich in Northrend without much effort. Obviously the gathering professions make the money: herbalism, skinning and mining. And they are profitable while leveling, so if you want to make money in Northrend, drop your crafting profession and go out to pick flowers or ores, or skins!
  
• profession-specific buffs/abilities. If you are an alchemyst, the same elixir give you more buffs. If you are an enchanter, you can enchant your rings, while others don't. I've found a great list for helping this choice. Don't forget, that this list can become obsolate by the next patch. You can always find current information on WotlkWiki. These buffs will help you raiding or PvP in lvl80 endgame. However if you don't plan to participate in serious raiding or PvP, these differences are irrelevant. The daily quests on 80 won't need flasks on, just like the Isle of Quel'Danas quests.
  
• BoP items: every profession offers items to create what only you can use. These items will be huge boost in early 80. You can wear T7-T8 equivalent items while others are running around in lvl70 epics or lvl 75-80 blues. However don't forget that these items can cost a lot, getting the recipes may take more time than farming a good instance drop and these items will surely be replaced by later raid drops. So a choice based on BoP is only wise if you either swimming in money (so you can afford buy the materials and vendor the item a month later), or if you don't plan serious raiding (in this case BoP-crafted is the best PvE gear available to you)
• what I already have: keeping a profession because you already have it is a dumb reason and should only matter if you have two candidates with equal benefits depending on the previous reasons. The old recipes won't worth much on 80 and the slvl1-360 releveling costs less than 1000G if you do it smartly (for gathering it makes money during leveling). So if you keep a useless profession just because you have it is dumb.
• what the guild needs?: keeping alchemy because there are no other alchemists left in the guild is just dumb. Not only because your guild will (against all promises) disband or radically change while making it's way to 80, but also because you are not the sacrificial lamb of the guild. Unless they pay for your work, don't have a profession that does not benefit to you.
• profession only mounts: if you pick tailoring just to have a flying carpet, you are wise like a lvl 10 ogre. Period.
• what the other people of my class/specs choose? If you follow the flock, you are a sheep.
• /roll. I really knew someone who picked profession this way.

If you made your choice, you have time to carry it out. Don't speed-level your new profession, do it slowly, buying materials from the AH cheap. Find "economical guide to relevel"-s.

Day 26: Expert Cookbook

Most of my income today came from selling Expert Cookbook, Wool cloth to the hordies, steel bar, and Greater Planar Essence (from disenchanted stuff). Bought 60 books, sent most to Thelnia for storage, they will be returned when the first 20 are sold.

The trade goods business is practically dead, so I focus on the mentioned items, and Thelnia's investment.

I still had no time to quest, so I'm still lvl 35.

Account balance: 1610G, 88 auctions, 20 bids, 1250G at Thelnia.

/gquit

Be warned: goblin philosophy can be easily found offensive or evil to many people. So read these posts only if you are open to controversial ideas.

The title of this post could be: "how did I missed the whole BC endgame raiding by not knowing the goblin philosophy", but it would be a bit long.

When I started playing, leveling up, I got bored quickly doing the same content over and over again, wanted more, more challenges, new bosses. If you asked me a year ago, where will I be in the game now: I'd say "all endgame content cleared", without any doubt. The truth is that the furthest I got in 25 mans was Hyjal second boss.

It's not about knowledge of the game. Several new and ambitious players, with terrible spell rotations asked advices after seeing my name No1 on the healing meter, and soon their performance increased greatly. Then they disappeared. /gquit-ted at 2 AM, never gave any explanation openly. When I asked them in /w, they said, "I wanted more". Some of them reached SWP, the instance I have not even seen.

It's not about skill and gear. When one of these ex-protegees, in 7/8 T6 asked me to jump in a ZA bear run since one of the healers of their usual ZA group cannot play, the healing meters ended like this:
***************** 7/8 T6 CoH priest
************* 5/8 T6 Holy pala
************ T4 and badge items myself.
This run was the first time I could participate in Lynx kill.
This run was the first time I saw Hex Lord and Zul'Jin.
This was the glorious moment, when I passed on a bear mount, since it's useless, making 9/9 end-game raiders think there is something wrong with me.

And they were right, of course not about that useless vanity mount. The reason of my failure is ignoring the goblin way. It's about not understanding, that some things just cannot be fixed.

If you ask me a year ago, what is the life-cycle of a guild, I'd answer: "people reach lvl 70, they start instancing, gear up, go to T4, T5, T6". I could not even imagine that a guild that want to kill Illidan, can fail. I mean, a chineese guild killed Illidan 52 days after they could access BC. It's a video game, not the cure for cancer!

In the guilds I was, I soon seen that the wipes are caused by people who either don't pay any attention, come unprepared, or having absolutely no clue about their class. I had no clue once, and I read forums, calculated spell HPS and HPM until I got better. Some of the other people did the same: asked, learned, became better... then disappeared overnight.

There were also others, who did not asked for advice, but listened to reason. They - reluctantly - changed spell rotations, replaced that purple spell DPS item to a healer blue, farmed some mana potions. They got a bit better.

And there were the majority, who refused to learn. Those who said "I'm playing since beta, don't come and play smartass", or "It's my toon, I play the way I want".

And there were the officers, who usually played better than most, and agreed that my suggestions were technically right, but "It was unfriendly to lecture him. Please don't do it again, we want no drama". Or: I know that he sucks but he is a great person and good friend. Soon I found out that even posting a damage meter result can be "drama-making". Growing impatient of the guild's failures, I started suggesting strats, posted HPS-HPM calculations on forums, archiving nothing but guild drama. There were /gquit-s and gkicks. One guild after the other with the very same problems.

Now I would say:

• There are leveling guilds. They either grow up and start raiding, or remain leveling forever by mutually boosting each other's alts and the alts new low-level buddies.
• There are fun, RP and PvP guilds, who don't want to raid.
  
• Tier guild, that raid a tier again and again and again and again. They consistently get undergeared players from leveling and lower tier guilds, gear them up, while they consistently lose geared players to higher tier guild. So the average gearing level stagnates, except when blizzard provides an out-of-raid gear upgrade to everyone (S2, badge). Tier guilds either form from leveling guilds who reach the limits of the current membership but unable/don't want to replace membership, or from dropout players from progression guilds.
  
• Progession end-game guilds. Usually 1-2 exists on every server's every side.
  

The list of the members may change a lot, but the guild name usually stay in the same position. This position is defined by the attitude of the guild leadership. How much they tolerate ignorance, how much they tolerate not paying attention or being unprepared? Who do they reward with gear? How much teaching a member can get? The guild leader, the officers and the core players define this mentality. This makes the difference between a tier guild and a progression guild.

While the member list can change even completely, this mentality stays. You cannot change it! No matter what you say, what phrases you use to tell them to improve, they will hear you say "You are not good enough!". They get pissed and angry and not an inch better.

This problem was also completely strange to Xixil Makspocket. The goblins don't have long-term cooperation, the word "loyalty" is unknown to them. They align for a common goal, if they reach it, they distribute the income, if they fail, they got their experience and disband anyway. New goal, new team.

So the goblin way is: cut your endgame progress into smaller objectives. There are guilds working on the same objective. Join them, reach your objective! For example if your current objective is getting Kara gear, a Kara-guild is your place. When objective completed, move on! Don't blame them for not being able to kill anything behind Gruul, it's not your place to lecture them. Just /qguit, go to the next phase. Things won't get any better in your current guild! They will never-ever reach higher level content as a guild. Of course some of the current members will, but under a different name. The guild: never! (only exception: new leadership, new rules, new mentality, serious /gkick-/ginvite rounds)

Took some time for me to learn the goblin way. I lost the opportunity to change things in BC, since it's almost up, people no longer raid. In WotLK, I won't waste my time with people who don't want to go further. I will reach the end of the endgame, Arthas will be down. And since on the top there are progression guilds, there is a hope that I will find a guild which provide enough challenge to stay, as Larísa said.

What about the others I left behind? What if without me they can't even down Gruul? The advice of Xixil Makspocket is simple: while I was there, I pulled my weight (or even more). Everything I gained in experience or gear, I worked for. I did not ninja anything from them, I earned everything. I owe them nothing! Those members who deserve better but get into worse with my /gquit are free to also move forward. If they choose not to, it's their call, not mine. There are guilds out there, who need and deserve them.

Xixil Makspocket also talked about the deeper philosoply behind /gquit, claiming that leaving such a guild is not just a selfish act, not only good for the individual, but for the whole world too. But that's a totally different post.

Day 25: Cheap potion

I still did not have time to go questing, but I resumed business. Besides bidding on items on the AH, sending Thelnia further investments and offering wool on the common AH, I visited Champion's hall. It is the place where PvP items are sold for honor. What a lvl 35 does here? Buys combat healing potion. It sells for 10 s and a honor point, so much cheaper than any crafted or dropped healing potion. While not the strongest on 70, on lower levels, it's a real gem.

I managed to sold all my expert cookbooks, going to buy more soon.

At the end I have 1685G, 89 auctions, 20 bids 1180G at Thelnia.

Day 24: Back in business

During the long meditation all my auctions either sold or expired. Had to run back and forth the AH and the mailbox to sell the items returned to get some space in my bags (or send them to Thelnia). At the end I had 86 auctions, 1730G, 1100G at Thelnia.

I had no time to quest, will do later. I'll soon be back in business fully.