Whirly: good to go

My World of Warcraft Priest has been making walking-around-money by disenchanting cheap things purchased from the auction house and selling the results. It appears you can only get your enchanting skill to level 60 that way. I’ve decided to see if I can become a real enchanter.

I’m buying cheap chest and bracers, enchanting them and placing them back on the auction house, hopefully for a small profit. The goal isn’t to make money with this, just break even.

The limiting factor so far is the number of cheap chest and bracers available. I’d like to have my skill to 100 by this weekend, but I’m not ready to lose a bunch of gold doing it.

I was trying to level an orc Shaman to 14 near the crossroads. Heading towards one of the hidden ponds I found a huge shard hanging from the sky, circled by elite mobs and a boss. It’s part of the invasion and there are more of these shards spread around the world. I continued on my way. Returning to the crossroads from my quest I stopped to watch two guys taking one of the mobs. I got an invite. Why not? I joined.

We worked our way through the mobs, there were other groups doing the same. Another group attacked the boss and with everyones help he went down. We stayed next to the shard killing what ever came by. It seemed a little reckless standing so close, but I was just trying to help my group.

Occasionally we were mind controlled, by the shard I assume, and would beat on each other a little. We took major damage while mind controlled even though there were no mobs around. Very strange.

Two of us died. On my way back from the graveyard I decided to quit the group as I was just passing by anyway. I rezzed, said my goodbyes and headed to town. I then found out what had been happening when the Mage yells, “No come back. Let me kill you again.” Apparently it was the Mage nuking us while we were mind controlled. I said, “I pass, thanks” and that was that.

Later someone asked the question in general chat, “Why do we waste our time playing this game?” The Mage from before responded, “I play to &%@@*# people off.”

Some people just aren’t wired right. It was no big deal. It cost me 5 copper to repair. My balance Monday night was 1588 gold. I play for different reasons.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of joining a battleground. I hesitate because I know absolutely nothing about what goes on in there. Also, I don’t know the time commitment required. I’d hate to leave in the middle. The fact I’ve never done any PvP would seem a disadvantage as well.

Sunday I signed into a battleground queue with my 35 Priest. It was five minutes or so before I was invited to join a battle. After a moments hesitation, I joined and found myself in a room, alone. Oddly, I wasn’t in a group; I would have thought that would be automatic. To my left, a stairway up. To my right a doorway. Well, I can’t stand here forever, I’ve got to look around.

A window pops up saying the battle is over, Alliance won… That was quicker than I expected. The window had tabs I could use to see the people who were in the instance, how they did in the battle and their scores. All the Horde side were Shaman except for myself and an undead Priest. Hey, I had 300 points.

On my return to the city, one of the Warrior trainers, in the room where you sign up for the battleground, had a question mark over his head. I received experience for a quest completed from him. I haven’t been back yet, but this battleground stuff is a lot easier than I’d thought.

I tried the second quest in Dungeon and Dragons Online with my Bard. There are some globs in the warehouse that, when hit, split into multiple globs. I’ve had trouble with them with another toon and was hoping to get past them.

I tried going a different way, there were globs that way as well. This time I noticed the message that hitting the globs with a slashing weapon is what causes them to split. I moved back and tried shooting him with an arrow. I guess arrows are considered a slashing weapon cause he split.

That was the end of that. I searched through my Bard inventory of tricks and had nothing else. Writing this, I’m wondering if a blunt weapon was the trick I was supposed to try. Did I mention that I don’t like puzzle games much?

World of Warcraft welcomed me back warmly and I leveled a new Priest to 6. Mike has installed DDO. If he’s up for it we’ll play a little this weekend. He always liked MUDs, text adventures and all that poop. Maybe he can walk me through this.

I ran a new search of classes in Dungeon and Dragons Online looking for the least played. The winner was Bard. I created a brand spanking new Bard and headed off to explore the world. I can see why there are so many Fighters and few Bards. As a newbie Bard I’ve got nothing extra that makes me special.

I have a buff, It lasts a few minutes, but after I use it I can’t use it again till I’ve rested at a shrine, maybe a bar . I can now throw it twice between rests because of a quest reward choice. It’s not that special.

I ran through the tutorial stuff and then tried one of the quests I’d done grouped the other day, this time solo. It was harder than I thought. I took damage from mobs that seemed pushovers before. It took me a while to figure out what to do and where to go even though I’d followed someone through before. Again, I think it would have gone easier with the boys there. I’m not one to read NPC text if I can avoid it. It would have made the quest easier. It was a challenge and fun. I’m itching to try more.

I haven’t decided to pay and play the full game yet. It’s truly fun and interesting, but I’ve got a lot of that in my life already. Is this better than what’s already on my plate? I try to have only two active accounts at a time. I’d have to give up something, probably City of Villains and I just started with that.

I’ve created a number of characters using the 7-day free trial of Dungeon & Dragons Online. I ran through the tutorial quests a few times, grouped with strangers, did a few of the lower level quests, died, broke one of my weapons. What else do you want for $0.00?

I did a search for each of the classes of level 10 characters to see what was popular and what not. I’m not sure how the search works. Is it only the people in my area or those looking for group? I wonder as there weren’t very many. The most popular class was Fighter, but there were only 14 of them. Total there were less than 50 level 10s and I can’t believe that was the complete population of the server. Maybe I did that wrong. At 10 there isn’t anything left to do. I should do a search of level 1 to 10.

The quests have a bit too much puzzle in them for my liking. I’m just looking for the next mob to kill not which knob to turn to make that other switch active so you can open that hidden door. The pickup group rushed through the quests too fast for me to enjoy. I was about to quit when they broke up. It would have been more fun with the boys. I think they enjoy puzzles more than I and we could have discovered the instance together.

It was an enjoyable evening. The game plays well and looks to have potential. At this stage, I still don’t know what’s going on, but that’s expected with any new game.

Back into Scarlet Monastery in World of Warcraft monday. The same three monks killed us again. We tried something different. I was to mind control the lowest and let the other two kill him. I got aggro trying to get close enough. Those boys put out a lot of damage and we lost control.

Still, it was a fun night. Everybody was in good cheer and we had some exciting fights. Mike’s Mage even got a drop and a half. The half is something that is slightly better in some ways, but lower in others. I would have liked to finish that part of the Monastery. Perhaps next time.

I’ve made over 1300 gold in the auction house. I cleared out my inventory of the slow sellers this weekend by dis-enchanting them. I hate to lose money that way, but with 1300 gold I must be doing something right.

I haven’t had much time to play City of Villains this week. I poked around doing street cleanup, but got no group invites.

I’ve downloaded the 7 day trial of Dungeons & Dragons Online. Making a new account wasn’t too onerous, name, email and phone. No credit card required. I hear they have added some solo content. Softer versions of the original group quests. I’m trying to talk the boys into taking a look at it with me. Some say it’s fun if you have your own group, we do. I also hear you can chose the hardness of the instance. I may be mistaken on that.

At level 33 we headed back into Scarlet Monastery, the right side, trying to get the Scarlet Key. It didn’t work out, but not from lack of trying. A lot of trying and some incredibly great fights.

Our trip in, last week, stalled when we ran into two Priest level 35 and 36. We went at them three times and I think we would have won the third time, but for a third Priest add. It was funny as the Priests don’t put out a lot of damage. We just couldn’t get through their healing each other. I used two mana potions and Mark used two greater healing potions, it was a long fight. Our technique is to Mind Control the 35 Priest and beat on the other forever. This time it worked and we strutted around for a bit showing off, as we do.

We had taken Houndmaster Loksey first so we were on a roll. As usual, we got tons of leather drops. I don’t think we picked up anything we could use this visit. We roll on chests and such just for grins and oddly Mike won a couple of times. He was on a roll with the rolls I guess. Maybe not.

We reached the room just outside the big boss where we had to do three Monks. They put out a hell of a lot of damage and we came up with a complicated plan that fell apart almost immediately. We couldn’t get it under control and died. Unfortunately, there isn’t any room for failure in there. When you get back from the graveyard there is a full pop. I think I’ll feel lucky next time.

Mike and I have a couple of toons on our old server we play Saturdays if we can. This Saturday we both dinged 38 in Badlands. While purchasing my spell upgrades I ran out of cash and had to log on a 60 toon to send some money. I’m not rich on this server. I have 150 to 175 gold spread across various characters. I decided, rashly, to take up enchanting with the 38 toon as disenchanting things has been a consistent money maker on our new server for me.

I bought some things from the auction house to disenchant, but when I went to put my Vision Dust up for sale I found the market flooded with low priced competition. Here’s where the crazy stuff starts. I started buying up the competition. I quickly ran out of cash again and had to get an 80 gold loan from my 60 toon. I burned through most of that before I controlled the whole Vision Dust market. That lasted no time at all as everybody started flooding the, now inflated, market with new competition. I attempted to keep the market stable for a little while. It would have required more cash than I could possibly muster. Now I’m just limping along trying to get back some of my money out of the Vision Dust crash of 06.

What a combination of dumb moves on my part. I’m now trying to re-coop my losses by working the auction house game on that server. I certainly know how to make money; I’ve over 1000 gold on our new server. It turns out I know how to throw it away as well.

I wanted to play something rare in City of Villains. I read the forums until I saw that, “Dominators suck”, exactly what I was looking for. I found I could build an ice/ice which fit my villain plan.

After the tutorial, I did a search using the team-member search tab. Newbie numbers don’t reflect reality as people stop playing toons they don’t like. I checked all the classes level 20-30 and found 11 Dominators, 14 Stalkers, 28 Corruptors, 37 Brutes and 46 Masterminds. Dominator won again.

I don’t know if Dominators “suck” yet. I’m not a big damage dealer, I don’t enhance team damage, but I do reduce damage taken by the team. Most of the groups I’ve been in have had another Dominator. Together we lock down most everything making it easy for the team to walk through the mission.

It looks like a good Dominator might not be noticed for their work as much as they are for their absence. I want to play something that people are pleased to have in their group. Maybe something they don’t play with often, something rare, special.