Laundering

Once upon a time we used to lament over the idea of creating a character on a different server.  In that universe, there was no cross-realm grouping via Real ID.  Heck, “LFG” meant rounding up a group of 5 (or full raid) on your own server and some days that took time.  More importantly, though, we didn’t want to “start over,” even if it meant playing with friends on their server.  My how the times have changed.  We can now group with who we want, when we want, where we want.  Heirlooms finally live up to the Account term in BoA, so our newbies are swinging hard right out of the gate.  Thanks to connected realms, we can now join a guild that isn’t even on our server.  That creates a bigger opportunity that most seem to realize.

Being able to be part of a guild on a connected realm allows for something very obvious: the ability to move goods across multiple servers.  Or, in a grander scale, gold.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has really taken advantage of this feature as of yet but it seems the kind of thing that is only a matter of time.  While the realms probably don’t connect full circle with each other just yet, that map probably isn’t that far off.  That essentially means getting your goods and money to wherever it suits you.

Now obviously the key to this is the guild itself.  If you’re part of someone else’s guild than this feature may or may not work in your favour.  Your best bet is to check with an officer or guild master to see if they mind, as you probably don’t have gold access for starters.  Even your tab access might be minimal, or there’s no room for such things.  Of course, if you run the guild yourself then the point is moot.

If you aren’t part of one, things can get tricky.  Your options are to either join a guild, and present a sound reason as to why they should allow you to perform such tasks (offering money, pets, or something else might increase your chances), or make your own.  If you make your own, remember you need to pay for the first tab.  This is where it might not be all that viable, because if you have to create a bank tab on each server in the chain, it’s going to add up.  But the fact is, it can be done.

As I say, I am surprised no one seems to be really taking advantage of this.  It seems to be tailor made for gold farmers to make transactions, and really anyone who frequents the auction house because you can work two markets from the same guild bank.  That’s huge because the markets can drastically vary, as we’ve discussed here many times.  It’s crazy to think that a few short years ago you couldn’t even message a friend on a different server and now there’s a strong chance you’re in a guild on a different server and have opportunities that were never thought possible.

Cleanin’ Out The Closet

I realize it’s been a few days.  Truth be told, I’m pretty sure I qualified as a “missing person” for a little while so permit me while I get myself back together.  Hmm?  What was I doing?  Nothing too important, just one of the items on my March checklist.  Namely, cleaning out the guild bank.  The next time I say I want to do that you are well within your rights to have me strung up by a lamplight and thoroughly flogged.

It couldn’t have been that bad?  This is clearly from someone who has never done it, or takes meticulous care of their own vault (which I do admit I should be making more of an effort to do).  Of course, as I was away for nine months it isn’t as though I can start pointing figures.  I can wonder just the same about some of the things that were in there.  Four copies of the Giant Growth Alchemy recipe?  I know we have a lot of alts, but oh my.

I do not know how other folks/guilds do their thing, but several years ago myself and another officer made the effort to put the entire bank in order.  We did our six tabs by materials/contents/professions, so to speak.  Cloth and Leather was one, Elements and Enchant Materials was another.  The first tab was for bags and other goodies for new toons, as well as where members could donate goods (so as to allow us to filter out stuff that need not actually make it to the other tabs).  It was a great system that did the OCD of ourselves, and anyone else, quite proud.

Well flash forward these years and you know, it really hasn’t changed all that much.  Many of the items that were placed in there, remain there.  In a lovely way, some useful items were added to it, while a few things like Netherweave (bags) did disappear.  Nothing else moved really.  Plus, tab one was packed with stuff to the point nothing could be added.  On top of cleanup, it was time for a change as well.  I wasn’t sure what that change was going to be when I started out.  When I got going, it was just go through the first tab and see where that leads.  It quickly lead to trips to the Auction House and the nearest vendor.  After that, I realized what I wanted to do with the six tabs and that was sort them by Vanilla and subsequent expansions.  The first tab was incredibly easy to sort and fill.  Anything that didn’t fit went onto the Auction House.  If it’s been there that long, nobody’s missing it and it likely wasn’t going to be hard to get more.

Originally, Burning Crusade and Wrath were going to get individual tabs but quite frankly there wasn’t nearly enough materials to make it worthwhile.  Instead, I put them together and had a much nicer looking tab that is about two-thirds full.  Not that the next two are anything special in terms of vastness.  Sure, Pandaria has six columns just for various food ingredients (I’m kidding…somewhat) so it looks a little more filled, but it and Cataclysm don’t have a whole lot going for them.  I think in due time it will fill up some.  Mostly just crafting materials or a buff food, but everything has to start with something correct?

So that’s four of the six, what did I do with the last two?  For starters they both sit empty.  I mean not a single item in either one.  The first?  Set up for Warlords of Draenor.  It never hurts to be prepared.  That’s the old OCD planning ahead so that anything that shows up when we go back in time has a home.  The last one somehow got dubbed “Mystery Egg.”  It’s empty now, but will hold goodies that any of us come across that don’t quite fit into the Expansion tabs.  Pets, epics, mounts…just some really rare stuff that we can pass on to other guildmates.  Sure, at the moment,  there’s really only three active members but we’re ready for it!

Which brings me to the final thought on the matter and that is the big question of what do you (or your guild) do with your bank tabs?  Obviously bank alts have an entirely different setting all together (at least mine certainly d0) so it isn’t those settings that intrigue me most.  It’s more the guilds, whether you hardcore raid or are a group of alt lovers such as Claws is.  How do you keep your goodie bag sorted?

Ideas of March

My efforts thus far to get where I want to be for Warlords has been met with limited results.  It’s entirely my own fault as I’ve been spending my time Hearthstoning when free, usually in an effort to complete a daily each day.  Yes, reader, that one has its teeth sunk in but good.  Fortunately with some free time last night I finally got in some actually WoW time and took to my Gnome Warrior.  The Mrs. and I did some puttering around but actually got into a dungeon pretty quickly(!) and I picked up a couple of levels in Blackfathom Deeps.  After that she was kind enough to run me through Stocks before calling it a night.  Another Gnomeregan run this morning and she’s now 27, on her way to 28.  Go figure, as soon as I lament queue times, I have two occasions where it was less than 20 minutes.  But, now that I’ve actually been productive to some degree, I figure I can increase said productivity and give myself a proverbial kick in the rear to do so…by jotting down some goals for the month.

• Get Semblance the Warrior (27) to 35.  My original plan was 25, but I accomplished that quite easily yesterday.
• Get Paramita the Priest (41) to 45.
• Get Elcombe the Mage (68) to 70.
• Finally have Elcombe learn Alchemy, and then actually power level it to some degree.
• Max out Saintvache’s Herbalism, currently 310.
• Get his Enchanting (487) up over 500 as well.  Who knows, might even Max it as well.
• Get Junkshot the Monk (7) to 20.
• Clean up Claws of Nature Guild Bank.
• Get Liouxpold (85) at least one level in Pandaria.
• Reach 2,500 Daily Quests

Not a vast list by any stretch, and many of the goals are pretty simple to obtain.  I average about an hour and a half of free time a day, so I can’t be shooting for the moon.  If I get all of these accomplished then it will feel like I’ve done something and will push me on towards the next ones in April.  Let’s face it, many little things can add up to one big thing and in this case that one thing can be momentum.  It wouldn’t hurt for me to have some of that the closer we get to Draenor.

Dark Phoenix. MINE!

Your pets serve a greater cause…and it’s purple.

It shouldn’t have been that hard.  I was already more than halfway to Exalted with my Blade’s Edge guild.  So, more rep granting quests (such as Elders and dailies) and I would be there in no time.  When I got up this morning, I think I was actually about 75% of the way there.  So I figured I would knock off the Kalimdor Elders and see where that left me.  Turns out I missed a few.  It wasn’t a big deal, as there are plenty of ways to nab some quests.  I decided, for a change of pace, that I would head to the Isle of Quel’Danas and do those dailies.

I rounded them all up and handed them in…only to find those quests don’t actually grant any reputation outside of the Shattered Sun Offensive.  Hrmph.  So, off I went again.  This time I headed to the Darkmoon Faire and did the quests there.  When Saintvache was done there I was so close, yet so far.  So I circled and picked up a few more Elders and did some pet battle dailies along the way.

Must get rep. Must get rep.

At long last I was a single quest away and I had to head back and hand in a pet battle quest in Orgrimmar.  Huzzah!  Exalted.  Gimme my Dark Phoenix!…it’s not there.  Neither is the Scorpion.  Frustration begins to kick in and I inadvertently close the Guild Vendor window.  I whisper Repgrind for advice but she doesn’t know either.  Reopen the window and low and behold it’s there.  But I don’t have Artisan Riding, which is required.  Are you kidding me?  Off to the flying trainer I go…

I have flying, but need better flying for a flying mount. Just take the damn gold already.

Alright.  So, I’m Exalted.  I have Artisan Riding.  I…no longer have the gold on this toon.  Oh come on already!  Look at TitanPanel to figure out where my gold is.  Wonder why the hell my level 40 Warrior has 2,000 gold and proceed to shuffle most of it, and some from my banker, back to Saintavche.

Guild Rep?  Check.  Artisan Riding?  Check.  Money?  Check.  Hand it over.

Damn right.

90-2 (not 92)

Yes, Saintvache finally capped this morning.  As you can see I picked up a sexy set of achievements in the process.  Better late than never.  Despite a higher survival rate than Tumunzahar, I definitely found the leveling process to take longer.  Perhaps because there was such a hiatus in the middle of Tum’s go that it didn’t seem so bad. I will say, quite obviously, it improved when I ended up in a new guild.  The XP boost was nice.  But even so, I found 89-90 was smoother than the rest of Pandaria.  I think because even when I couldn’t really hop on and bang out some bubbles of experience, I could still take about 10-15 minutes and do three little quests to get me close to a million xp per day.

I would start with the Cooking Daily.  On Horde side, my personal preference is Thunder Bluff.  They’re all pretty simple and if you land Mulgore Spice Bread, you’ve really got it easy.  I will say a Fishing Daily will help even more, but few of my toons have fishing (two come to mind).  After that I took the Blasted Lands portal, where I headed to Karazhan for the Pet Battle Daily, and then back to the Blasted Lands to go through the Dark Portal and do the Pet Battle there.  As I said, three quests, almost one million experience.

 For what it’s worth, you need just over 18 million experience to go from 89 to 90.  If you did just this every day and used your time for other toons, you would ding in just under three weeks.  Sure, that still seems like a fairly long time, but not when you’re only popping on for 15 minutes at a time.  You’d be there before you know it (toss in the Darkmoon Faire around the same time for a couple of easy Profession Quests as well and you’re laughing).

So now what?  Well, I joined said Guild last Saturday or Sunday and thanks to the Lunar Elders and the rest of my ventures, I’m halfway to Exalted.  Since I helped them unlock the Dark Phoenix mount, I find myself beckoned to finish that rep and get said mount.  I’m sure part of that will come via the Timeless Isle.  Once again, it has more appeal as a class that can throw out some damage and survive, versus my Holy Dwarf.  Along with that, it’s probably time to start boosting the rest of the Amateur Army.  I know Liouxpold is on Pandaria, but I can go without the place for a little bit.

I’m In Charge

Really, given yesterday’s news, you knew it was inevitable.

It actually took me a lot longer to get the guild active, much more so than I expected.  Turns out Kirin Tor (US) is dead and some folk there are just odd.  One guy turned me down, then said ok when I started advertising in general chat.  Another ran up and grouped with me after the same message…and then ran off.  Special thanks to Tome, as well as Zwingli who rolled a Troll to get me the last signature I needed.

My First Concert

So I hopped on Saintvache yesterday. Figured I would take him to the Darkmoon Faire for his turn at the easy profession-quest experience. First thing I noticed was that his tabard was bland. At a glance it would seem his guild is no more, but even if it existed I wouldn’t blame them for removing someone who may or may not have ever come back. So after I took the tabard off and he looked his handsome Tauren self, it was off to the Faire.

Booting around doing the Herbalism and Enchanting quests, I couldn’t help but notice an insane amount of fireworks going off.  Of course, yours truly notices these things but keeps right on going.  Eventually I started to wonder about what was going on and then in my travels got close enough to hear music.  Hrm, could it be?

Off to the stage I went and behold, there was L90 ETC playing on the stage.  Now, I’d heard of them from day one being in the game pretty much, but despite being around the World’s End Tavern and such I had never actually heard them in game (I’ve caught I Am Murloc on YouTube more than once).  So as you can see, Saintvache got his groove on.  I do almost wish I had taken someone else and not tainted his Paladin status with those moves.  Still, I hung around for a good chunk of it and enjoyed myself.  Could be just revisiting seeing P!nk this past Saturday night, but hard to say.  Either way, it was one of those unique in-game experiences that come along rarely.  They have nothing to do with anything and we get the chance to enjoy them for what they are.