Odd Moment..a quest completed..but feeling unfufilled

In life (both real & virtual) you set goals for yourself. Some are long term, some are professional, some are personal etc. Thursday night I completed a personal goal for me in WOW, I acquired the reciepe for Elixir of Dream Vision http://thottbot.com/i9297 someone was selling it on the alliance ah for 800g/900g buyout. I bid 800g and won the auction.

As you can see by the drop rates on thot, the only chance you really have to get this is by killing a dragon of nightmare. This puts the drop in my view at the same level as a tiny emerald whelpling. But unlike the whelpling, where your investing your own time to get the drop, with the 4 dragons your talking about an entire raid to get this recipe, and then it's only a 10% chance.

Here's the irony, for a long time I considered this to be the holy grail of my personal quests for wow. No matter what if I scored this reciepe I would be on par with those players of old. Of course players of old means from 2004-2006 so is that really old. In an MMO it is but in real life not really. it's just a short couple of years.

But I didn't get it through downing a world boss, I bought it on the AH, and maybe that's the problem. If it had dropped from one of the mobs I had farmed for it, or out of a chest in it's level zone then maybe I'd be jumping for joy. But I bought it with gold from ah sales and from farming rep. So it made it feel like I was cheating. Like I really didn't earn it I suppose.

Drunken Rage, Nerfy Goodness & Chicken Cordon Meth

Importante: This post was originall supposed to go up a couple days ago...but life got in the way

As I've posted before I haven't had much time to play WOW 2.x or 3.x as of late since SAT season is in full swing. I have to prioritze after all and as it stands with the launch on 11/13 and only so many free hours actually avalible to play WOW, I'm putting my focus on getting my wintersaber mount. If my calculations are correct. I have to run the 3 quests 24 more times to get the mount. I think even with my limited time I should have this done before launch. After this is complete I'm going to farm rep with the Timbermaw Hold to get the Diplomat title for WOTLK.

I did though take some time to do the brewfest events for this year, and I like many other people are infuriated by blizzards change with the Brewfest mounts. Last year I didn't have enough tickets to purchase one so I consolled myself with the fact that I'd have enough for 2008. Of course I didn't think they make the ram a drop from Colin Direbrew in BRD. I did the BRD slog twice and said fuck it, it's not worth my time for the mount. Kodo or no Kodo.

on a second note. I'd like to make a comment about the nerfing that's going on in WOTLK. From what I can tell blizzard is taking the next logical step with bringing MMO's to the masses with their release of WOTLK. For those of you who don't already know a lot of the mechanics of the game have been modified to make them more casual freindly. For example, Elixirs and Flasks are now 2hrs and 4hrs respectivly. Aura's and Buffs are now Raid wide etc. While I like it on principal at the same time I think it loses some of the mentality of setting up a raid and balancing the groups.

And to furthur complicate matters, Blizzard is trending towards shorter instances. Again I see this as an attempt to reach out to a wider audience that frankly doesn't have the time to spend hours in instances. But this also may be an attempt to keep existing players happy. Since the release of burning crusade a signifigant number of players have developed one of more end game alts that are played as much if not more than their main character. By shortening the time to complete an instance the player base can have all his characters on par.

To Sum up here is the time de sink

WOW Classic: 2-3 hours to complete an instance

The Burning Crusade: 45-90 minutes

Wrath of the Lich King: 30-45 minutes

I wouldn't mind this downward spiral except now the dungeons seem so Small...I mean you can make a dungeon seem big and impressive, and don't get me wrong blizzard has succedded in that but 4 rooms is still 4 rooms. & it kinda made me feel shortchanged with the experience.

And lastly...now there is no reason to ever ever logout of wow

http://www6.popcap.com/promos/wow/

I have to concur with the gents over @ penny arcade. This is chicken cordon meth. Still I did load the addon to my interface and played it last night (and a lil bit this morning). I would say the most intresting moment was last night on my shaman\bank alt. I sat glazing over the many jewels...my wife sitting next to me on her laptop..looks over...sees me bejewelling away..and replies

"You're such an amatuer...you don't even see that combo over there"

It's good to have a n00B moment every so ofter...

The Rumors of my dissapearance...

Are completly false.
Right now the real world has to take priority.
So my WOW time has been drastically reduced.
If I have time to play I'm on the Northrend test server as Fingolfin.
Give me a shout if you stop in.
See you on the virtual side
Neren\Greathoof

Labor Day Beta Blues...

I got into the Lich King Beta about a week & a half ago. On one end it's kinda of an honor to be selected for beta testing by blizzard. I know that they say it's a random selection, but the quality of the players doesn't lead me to believe it. There are too many armani war bears & too many twin blades of azzinoth for me to believe it's a random selection of users who opt'd in. I've also seen both mount drops from ZG too.
On the flip side. The beta can really suck. For anyone not in the beta, the joy of being allowed into northrend before your friends is tempered by Quests that are partially implemented (btw anyone have a hair trigger =P) Talent builds that are in place but don't appear to be working. And having to deal with your tradeskill leveling past 375. And of course new builds that take several hours to download and then patch into your system.
Oh and the most annoying thing. is that since there's only two servers (pve & pvp) your name may have already been taken. Hence I'm Fingolfin on Northrend. Two points for anyone who can figure out that refrence wout looking it up on wikipedia!