Wednesday, January 5, 2011

GathererDB

I've been using Gatherer and GathererDB to help me find ore and herbs. Unfortunately the authors blew away all the data in GathererDB because of all the changes in Cataclysm - and they've since released only one update, way back in mid December, when very little data was available.

However, another fellow has begun extracting the WoWHead data and putting it into a new GathererDB database. Here are some links:

Lloydpick's GathererDB WoWHead Updates - Here you can download a more up-to-date GathererDB database.

GathererDB on WoWHead - This is the comments section where I found out about the above download.

I Installed Lloyd's updates this morning and, while the density of nodes is nowhere near what it was with the old, pre-Cata database, there does seem to be quite a few new ones. I think it's worth doing the update.

Back up your WTF folder first, though, just in case!

Gold farming on an RP server

I've found it more difficult to make gold by auctioning recipes on Kirin Tor than I have on the other servers I've played on. Zul'jin in particular turned out to be very fertile; my highest level toon there is only 23 but in a few weeks I accumulated over 3500 gold. Proudmore gave returns at a similar rate.

I think this is because these servers have been around a long time, and their populations have matured. There are a lot of players with high level characters and a lot of gold, and when they level alts they don't mind paying good money for their profession recipes and patterns.

Velen, where I've played most, is newer (2007) so there is not as much gold floating around, and its active population is smaller, but it has still been fairly easy to farm gold through recipe reselling.

By contrast, Kirin Tor is an older server than Velen, but it's an RP server and its active population is noticeably lower than any of the other servers I've played, at least judging by auction house activity. I tried my strategy of buying (mostly cooking) recipes in remote areas and putting them on the AH. This strategy worked great on the other servers but hasn't worked as well on KT.

Part of the reason is that until yesterday I didn't farm recipes in as diverse locations on KT as I had on the other servers; I mostly bought recipes in Zangarmarsh, Hellfire Peninsula, and Terokkar Forest. Yesterday I went out to Nagrand and then toured Kalimdor and Stranglethorn, farming a much broader selection of recipes.

I'm already seeing good payback, with a lot more sales this morning than I've had in several weeks of auctioning only Outland recipes.

Death Knights

I rolled a Death Knight on Ashuntrah's server, Kirin Tor, a few weeks ago. I leveled through the DK starting zone to 58 and then went to Outland and got her up to 60.

I have to say this is possibly the creepiest and most distressing experience I've had in WoW. Death Knights start out as servants of the Lich King, and you have to go around murdering unarmed civilians who are cowering in their homes and the streets of their towns, shaking like leaves as they plead with you to spare them because they have children to take care of. And the cowering animations are really convincing, too.

I suppose some people may enjoy playing the bad guy once in a while, but for me this was really awful. I have been discouraged lately about the very slow progress of recovering my health, and I play WoW to escape from these feelings, but I have to say that being an entry-level DK was a really rotten escape! I was never quite in tears, but I got close.

OTOH, I appreciated starting out at level 55. The four 12-slot Deathweave bags and the First Aid skills were also nice. It didn't take long to reach level 60 and be able to fly. Ashuntrah very generously loaned me enough gold to get Expert riding and a Flight Master's License, which makes it a lot easier to get around for questing, profession leveling, and my technique of gold farming by recipe reselling.

The programmed dramatic sequence at the end of the Death Knight starting zone redeems your character somewhat, and it was reasonably entertaining. But the whole DK starting experience left me with a fairly unpleasant association with that character, and it's taking some time for it to fade.

Before Ashuntrah explained the way rolling a DK works to me, I was not aware of the fact that once you've reached level 55 on any server, you can roll a DK on any of five servers.

Had I realized this, I might have rolled one on Zul'jin instead of slogging through from level 1. Unfortunately I lost momentum at about level 23. This happened on Proudmoore too, and I've "mothballed" my characters on both servers for now. I seem to stay engaged a lot better when I'm playing with someone.

Anyway, now that I know that a DK is an option whenever I want to start playing on a different server, maybe I'll roll one on another server at some point. Once the memory of those creepy DK starting zone quests fades a little more.

Cataclysm endgame puzzles


I reached level 85 with Alaurai last week. A thousand thanks to Sthenia for hanging in there with me through the long journey!

Also, thanks to Dingbata for playing with me the past few weeks. We've leveled our toons from 30ish to 61, and we're now in Outland. Flying is the best landmark in the game. It was really awesome flying around the Eastern Kingdoms with my bro!

I'm finding that I am enjoying playing my rogue, Sandrainne, now that I've spent enough time with her to start to understand how. Thanks to Sthenia for her tips on this.

Now that we've reached the endgame (again!) Sthenia and I are puzzling over what to do. I'm finding the Tol Barad dailies to be, ah, somewhat less than enthralling, and the mobs there are really mean and nasty. Ashuntrah says they hit harder than any other normal mobs in the game.

I'm also not too sure about how I feel about PvP. I've done a few battlegrounds, and enjoyed some of them, but they are really intense and demanding, and not good for me to do on days when I'm not feeling well.

Ashuntrah suggested working on getting Heirloom gear for my alts, and I've been looking into this, but I must say that the whole Crusader/Valiant/Arena/Honor Points/Exalted Reputation thing seems very complex, and I don't really understand it all yet. Maybe with a little more research I'll get a handle on it.

But the fact that you have to trek all the way out to northern Icecrown to do the dailies puts a damper on this, especially if you're also trying to do the Tol Barad dailies and the Stormwind cooking and fishing dailies at the same time. And you don't get the Argent Crusader Tabard - which lets you portal out there to the Icecrown boonies - until you've finished the process!