Not Quite There Yet

A week long business trip to Europe delayed my plans on my Alliance Warrior, but he's back in the swing of things, and just started working his way through Gorgrond today.  That was my 22nd toon to run through the Tanaan Jungle starting experience.  Ugh.

It's a busy week this week, so not sure I'll be able to finish him up, but should be in relatively short order.  Then it'll be time to finish up the monk and finally nail down the goal of a level 100 of each class for each faction (plus one extra warlock, and maybe an extra hunter if I have time)

I'm still doing a little bit of the garrison thing, but not with the same level of urgency that I have in the past.

I was excited to see a release date for Legion as well.  August 30th will be here before you know it, so I've now got a fairly limited amount of time to get these last few toons done.

A Return to Garrisons and Leveling

So as I foresaw in my last blog post, I think I've finally reached the point where I've lost interest in SWTOR again, so I've started to pick up my garrison activities and leveling in a bit more earnest now.

I've got two toons to finish up in order to reach the stated goal of having a max level toon of each class for each faction.  My alliance warrior is current at level 87 and working his way through Pandaria.  I've then got a pandaren monk that is sitting in Hellfire Peninsula at level 61.

I've gone back to looking working on my garrison's more regularly to keep the flow of gold coming.  All 11 of my characters on the Horde side have fully outfitted garrisons with all their followers at 675 and all are essentially always maxed on garrison resources as well so they can continue to use the Trading Post to make lots and lots of money.

With those 11 toons, I tend to average somewhere around 6-10K gold per day, so if Legion goes live around the end of September as expected, I should be able to conservatively add another million gold to the pile by then.

I've also started to do the same thing on the alliance side.  At this point, I've only got 6 toons that are fully equipped, 3 that I'm working on and then the two that are still leveling, so needless to say, things aren't nearly as lucrative alliance side for me, but I'm still amassing a pretty reasonable cash horde on the alliance side as well (see what I did there?)

I'm hoping to finish up the alliance warrior sometime in the next week or two and then focus on the monk.

Cheers

Slowing Down on Leveling Alts

So I've really slowed down on leveling all of the various alts.  Without any new content coming out of Blizzard any time real soon, I'm not in a big rush to get a few more alts to max level, only to then wonder what the heck I'm going to do with all of those alts once Legion drops.

I've also actually gotten to the point that I feel like I've accumulated enough gold, so don't even feel compelled to keep logging in for the regular garrison chores.  I'm still accumulating some on my alliance server, so when I do these days, it's typically to just work through the garrison stuff on the 9 max level toons that I have sitting there.

I still have both my alliance warrior and monk to finish up in order to have a different character from each class from each faction at max level.  Plus I've got my 3rd warlock sitting on yet another server.

Right now I've been playing a fair amount of SWTOR, just for the fresh content and storylines, but I expect I may exhaust the solo play end of that in another month or two, which will likely then give me some time to finish up those last few alts before Legion.

Or it's possible that I'll get tired of SWTOR like I did before, although they've really made a lot of improvements to the questing experience and storyline that may keep me engaged for a while.

So that's the update on the Warcraft front for now.  Not much to talk about, because there is really not much going on.  Such is life in the World of Warcraft these days.

Analysis of the Q4 Earnings Release

So instead of my normal blog-based analysis of the Q4 Earnings Release, this quarter I did it in podcast format with Alt from Alternative-Chat and Mick Montgomery from The Starting Zone podcast was kind enough to put it up as an episode of The Starting Zone.

So a big thank you to both Alt and Mick.  And here is the link to the podcast analysis of Activision-Blizzard's Q4 Earnings Release:

Starting Zone Podcast - Q4 Earnings Release

Playing Some Rift

So yesterday I went in and started playing a little bit of RIFT.  I'd run through my normal garrison activities for the day, and started working my warrior through Mt. Hyjal, and then just stopped and decided I wanted to do something else.

RIFT is a game that I've played since launch and really enjoyed.  I got a mage to max level in the original game, and even did a bit of experts and raiding, but once Storm Legion came out, I started falling behind.

So now I'm playing a little bit of catch up.  My mage is finally finished with the Storm Legion content and working his way through the Nightmare Tide leveling zones.  Those have been fun so far and I'm about half way through 61 at this point.  I'm leveling as a Harbinger / Chloro build.  You Warcraft fans out there are going to snort your drink out of your nose at this point, but this is actually a melee build for mages.

See, the interesting thing with Rift is that any "calling" (their word for classes) can basically play any role - tank, healer, melee or ranged.  So you can have a ranged warrior, or a healing warrior, and a melee mage, or a tanking mage.  There is a warlocky option for mages in Rift, but I was really enjoying the Harbinger through the Storm Legion zones, so I'm sticking with it for now.  I've also heard good things about Pyro builds (think fire mage), so I may try that out soon.

I've got toons in various states from the other 3 callings as well.  I've got a cleric at level 28 (who I play like a shadow priest), I've got a rogue at level 25 (who I play like a hunter), and a warrior at level 6.  Yeah.  I've never been much of a warrior guy.

So I may work on getting my mage to max level and then play through the content in the Planetouched Wilds, just to see what that's like.  Stay tuned for updates.

Ding, Level 100 #21, And More Gold-Making

So I managed to hit level 100 yesterday on my alliance shadow priest.  Not a bad way to start off the month of February.  I'm working on my alliance warrior next, saving the monk for last.  The warrior is currently working his way through Howling Fjord of all places.  I wasn't sure I'd ever done that on the alliance side, but now that I've started through it, I realized I had.  

Since on the horde side, I'd leveled my warrior as fury, on the alliance side, we're going arms.  All of the characters that I've been leveling lately, seem to have been taking right around a total of 2 days played to get to 100.  That just really blows my mind when I step back and consider that way back in the day, a total of 6 days played to 70 was absolutely bonkers fast.

How things change.

Beyond the leveling stuff, I'm continuing to crank out the gold horde side with 11 fully functioning garrisons.  Things are starting to crank up alliance side as well.  I've got follower groups fully geared on at least 3 different alliance toons, and working my way there on another 5.  It's the usual mix of treasure hunters and trading posts to keep the gold flowing.

Beyond that, there's not a ton going on for me in Warcraft these days.  Just peeking into alpha news now and again and waiting for the beta to come out.

Space Oddities and Glass Spiders

So it was August 1987, and I was disappointed.  Seriously disappointed.  For an artist like David Bowie, clearly Red Rocks Amphitheater (which was coincidentally 2 miles from my childhood home), was the perfect venue for a David Bowie performance.

But it wasn't to be. This tour (the Glass Spider tour) was simply too big. Heck, the Serious Moonlight tour hadn't even set foot in Colorado, so understandable that they'd want to reach a wider audience.  so instead, I found myself sitting at Mile High Stadium.  Oh hell yes, I still went to the concert.  I may have been disappointed, but I wasn't nuts.  And it was AMAZING.

So this week, I'll be leveling to the accompaniment of the legendary Mr. Bowie.

So there's been a little bit of progress on the leveling front so far this year.  As mentioned in my "Year In Review" post, I did manage to get toon #19 to 100 before the end of the year, and I also managed to get toon #20, my alliance rogue, to 100 pretty quickly in the New Year.  I'm now working on my alliance shadow priest who is working his way through Northrend.  Next up is going to be the alliance warrior, and then the monk to round out my full set of 11 alliance max level toons.

I may comment more on this later on, but I've been findings a bit rougher going in Northrend leveling dungeons lately.  Things that used to be easy and lots of xp seem to be causing groups a lot more trouble these days.  It's the normal suspects - pulling too much, standing in bad, ignoring mechanics, not staying with the group (general rule of thumb - stay with the tank and healer, not that complicated folks).

I have typically run a lot of dungeons while working through the Northrend zones and then stopped once I hit Cataclysm zones, but I've been looking closely at the impact the new normal is having on my xp per hour, and really debating whether that still makes sense.

2015 Year In Review

So as is my tradition on this blog, I've decided to do a quick year in review for 2015.  Interestingly enough, as I finished up 2014, the Warlords of Draenor expansion was relatively new.   Has it really only been a year?  It feels like forever.  At December 31 of last year, I had managed to level exactly 3 characters to 100.  I will likely finish up #19 sometime this week (and #20 probably sometime next week), so you can do the math on that.

Unlike previous years, I didn't have any shiny new MMO releases that I tried.  Last year involved a brief flirtation with Wildstar and some time spent on Diablo.  This year, while I did play a little bit of RIFT, there wasn't really any major attention spent to other titles.

A lot of this year was spent on Garrisons and using them to accumulate gear and gold.  That's been fairly successful with really minimal effort and has really replaced inscription as my low effort gold raising technique.

I did the legendary quest chain on 3 different toons, and then promptly asked myself why the hell I bothered doing that.  The effort burnt me out on raiding and LFR pretty badly, and as a result, I haven't set foot in LFR in meaningful way since August.

But I'm enjoying the leveling scene, and I'm looking forward to Warlords.  My rogue is currently sitting at 91 in his garrison accumulating garrison resources and will probably push to 100 next week.  After that it is alliance priest, warrior and monk, probably in that order.  Then I may do a third hunter and a third mage if time allows.  I may level this one as fire just because I've never ever ever even tried that.  So why not, right?

Cheers,

Joar

Rogue Progress

So I managed to finish up Northrend yesterday on my rogue.  Rogues are an odd conundrum for me, because I really enjoy leveling rogues, but it's not a class that I enjoy at all at end game.  But every time while leveling I always find myself wondering why that is.

So the rogue will be heading off to the Cataclysm zones now shortly and hopefully not too much longer until he's safely parked and accumulating Garrison Resources while I finish the push on my warlock from 91 to 100.

Next up after the rogue will be my shadow priest, followed probably by warrior and then monk.  And then if I still have time after all that, I may start a third hunter.

Garrisons continue to be very lucrative with only a minimal time investment, not only in terms of gold generation, but the added benefit of improving my alts' gear, which should make leveling them in Legion that much easier.  Of course, if there ends up being some kind of loot pinata as part of the pre-expansion event, all that time gearing up followers may have been essentially wasted, but that's okay.  Not everyone will need to take up the stick and whack the pinata.

Not Much of An Update

So I haven't published anything here in two weeks now, and it's honestly because, particularly with the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday in the middle, there really hasn't been much going on.  My Warcraft activity has been fairly limited and has consisted mostly of getting up and doing Garrison missions across 18 different toons, and then working a little bit on leveling warlock #3.

So the warlock is sitting at level 79 and almost almost done with Wrath and ready to move on to Cataclysm.  I pretty seriously dislike the Cataclysm dungeons, so I'll probably be mostly questing through those zones and may pick up the dungeons again in Pandaria.

My plan is to park the Warlock in their garrison at level 91 to let them accumulate garrison resources for a bit while I go back to working on some of the alliance toons.

So that's it for now.

Cheers.

You Really Can't Go Wrong With a Third Warlock

So I went ahead and started a third warlock last week so that I could have one of each spec at max level when Legion came out.  That warlock is now sitting at level 60 and working his way through Hellfire Peninsula.  Good progress for just a few days worth of work.

After the warlock is done, I'll likely go back to my alliance group, where I have four more toons that need to be pushed from somewhere in the 60's or 70's through to max level.  Rogue will be up next, followed by priest, then monk then warrior.  Because warriors are always last with me.  For absolutely no good reason.

If I'm able to finish those four up, I'll probably go back and start a third hunter on my new third Horde server.

Meanwhile, Garrison operations alliance side are now making good progress and starting to generate some cash for my toons on that server.  One of the interest side effects of leveling some of these toons from pre-90 is that they didn't have time parked in their garrison accumulating garrison resources, so most of them are running very short on resources by the time they hit max level.  What that means is having to wait a few days in some cases to accumulate enough to upgrade to level 3 and then to build out the various buildings I need for my gold making and leveling strategies.

And yes, I'm well aware that I could build lumber mills for each of them or fly around looking for treasures, but I'm not interested in investing that kind of time.  I'm looking for something that I can do in a minute or two per day with each toon.

So that's the update at this point.

Cheers,

Joar