Gitr Knows WoW

Unlike your other World of Warcraft blogs. Quality over quantity, and a terrific community.

WoW 101

Single-Player Mode

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Pursuant to my discussions with Lassira about private servers, I finally came up with an original content idea. Original, at least in that, as well-read as I am in WoW, I have yet to see this idea.

For those of us who have always played RTS, FPS, and the various FPS/strategy games like Rainbow Six, I have a desire to see the entire game. Obviously there are thousands, if not a million people willing or able to put the time into the game to get attuned, geared, and learned in the end-game instances to play them through to the end of Blizzard’s content.

What I propose is a single-player mode. You get a crew of 4, 9, or 19 computer-controlled players, just as you do when you assault the subway in Rainbow Six. That would enable someone who gets off work and eats dinner and puts the kids to bed to play for an hour per night to get somewhere. We don’t all have a bunch of guild whores that can drop everything they are doing to help us out whenever we log in, do we? You do!? You suck!

There would be no need for acquiring the loot directly, as you would need to take control of another player should your main die in combat. Bosses would drop tokens that represent a particular piece for your given class, which you would then obtain when you rez and take control of your main again.

The only thing missing at that point would be a save game feature for your progress through a long instance. Granted, instances don’t take 3-6 hours any more, but they are still longer when starting off than many people have. Even playing on private servers to experience end-game content won’t alleviate everyday time crunches.

Would you like to see a Single-Player mode? What things have I missed here? Would you consider playing on a private server just to have an instant 70 to see end-game content with a new class that you’ve never tried? Are you even remotely as busy as I am?

I love WoW as much as the next guy, so let me see it all. Sound off.

Want an Upgrade? Check out the Armory

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It’s time for me to stop complaining about my bad gear on my new main, Deadr. He’s hit level 66 and is specced out full Shadow with points rolling in on Discipline now. After getting killed dozens of times in Nagrand by rogues, warriors, and pallies, I had a bad attitude about my gear. Nevermind that they were usually 2-5 levels higher than me, I still thought that I should be able to get away at least.

This week I stumbled across a feature that I must have missed earlier on my Armory page, or it’s a new thing that I missed news of: Find an Upgrade. For any piece of armor, weapon, or trinket you have, you can have the Armory suggest upgrades for you. It puts them in a nice column-sortable table that shows quite a few stats AND how it is attained (quest, rep, boss drop).

I discovered the stats on even some of my lower-level items are still tops in the game outside of running instances because many of my things that I was unhappy with were crafted. For example, I have DE’d many a piece of armor because my Netherweave armor pieces have bonuses that were too good to pass up for a few extra Stamina or Intelligence. That has changed with some higher level quest rewards last week, but some pieces are not likely to get any improvements until I hit level 68 and get some level 70 or group help with some quests that look like a lot of fun.

So before you get down on your gear, check out the Armory.

How is your gear doing now?

Ding 66; Tons Done in Nagrand

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It was quite a weekend. Here is a quick summary of my progress and an apology for not posting sooner:

Ding 66 – Got Shadow Fiend
Honored with Mag’har
Completed the entire Nesingwary questline with Zipthunk’s help
Logged about 20 world PvP kills, several 70s

With all of that to recap, we’ll see if I have time this sitting. I’m at home with the piano tuner dude because my wife’s work schedule changed. I’m making the most of my time. 🙂

Let’s see, Friday night, I started with a grouping with a 66 Druid that totally rocked until a few level 70 Alliance decided to make our lives miserable. The fun thing was that 2 of them weren’t enough when we were ready. They either waited until we pulled too many mobs or came in 3s… except one rogue who rocked our world. I’d go down first while low on mana, and then my poor buddy was singled out against a clear expert.

I spent most of my time Saturday just trying to kill things here and there and picking up quest items in Nagrand. Sunday morning was more of the same, with life as a 66 from the morning before to make me happier.

Things got rocking fun last night when I was on my way to Bloodripper’s area to look for help when I spotted a 66 BE hunter named Zipthunk killing the 2nd quest owls for the Nesingwary line. I greeted him and asked if he could help me with the elites if I helped him. He said he’d done all of the questline but would gladly help in exchange for healing with demon elites at Camp: Hate. Sure thing.

With that settled, we made quick work of Bloodripper and Bach’lor. We took care of his quest, twice (I didn’t realize I was ready for that quest, so when he turned it in, I picked it up), but we’d drawn attention from Alliance players several times. We eventually got done and agreed to take out any and all Alliance on sight and went on our way to find Banthar.

After about 15 PvP kills for us, we were ready to hunt down Tusker, but one of the guys we kept killing was hovering over Tusker on his flying mount… pissed. We figured that if he attacked in the middle of the fight, we ditch the elephant and go all out on his a$$. He never attacked, and I got my Nesingwary Safari Stick. Talk about an upgrade!

One last picture for the day… my ride on a netherdrake for Survey the Land:

It’s MINE! My Mage’s Battle Baton

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With the help of some Core guildies, I got my today. Crugg and Wakarathe and I took down the next 3 bosses, but needed to call in a trial member (sorry I didn’t get a screenshot to capture your name) to take down the final boss in awesome fashion. He was a 70 Druid and took the heals as I donned full Shadow glory and VE’d and simply MB’d and Melted Face the whole time. So we 3-manned it (with a close call several times) until the last boss.

There were always no less than 4 Alliance players around, but they were just waiting until their help came. I think when they inspected Crugg, they decided against making any aggressive moves. 🙂

I got 70g, sold over 20 bags, and got this to bring my spell crit rate up 5% to 16.33%.

[tag]Battle Mage’s Baton[/tag]
Binds when picked up
Unique
Two-Hand Staff
92 – 161 Damage Speed 2.10
(60.2 damage per second)
+45 Stamina
+31 Intellect
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 85.
Equip: Improves spell critical strike rating by 30.

Ding 46; Got a Better Bow

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Ding in 3d 10h 34m /played time in Feralas while hunting hippogryphs. It was a long, protracted battle while fighting for the right to kill things with a Chinese Gold Farmer (named something like Djsajf) who managed to hit level 48 and still had a pet named “Boar.” He was too stupid to realize when I had already tagged 3 mobs. He ended up helping me kill about 10 mobs before he realized what I was doing. I think he woke up and started monitoring his bots.

I got a Sylvan Shortbow from Cawind Trueaim in Camp Mojache, a limited sale item that is better than my crossbow. I got that fully skilled up and turned in 20% of level 46’s XP in quests. Then, according to Joana’s Horde Guide, I made my way to Ashzara. I finished up that stuff for about 9k XP and I’m headed to the Hinterlands for about a dozen quests to get me to level 47.

Ding 45; That Was Quick

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I only played for about 30 minutes last night and bout the same this morning, yet I dinged 45 after a mere 3d 7h 38m of /played time. This has been the best run ever, and I no longer feel like I don’t have any good gear because I’ve been sending my bank alt stuff the whole time, which got me my mount at level 40 and several blue gear items.

With 45/70 levels down, I’m feeling pretty good about playing hunter for a good long while. I’d have to hit a pretty boring section to want to switch to Paladr again before I ding 60, but I’ll already be in Outlands at that point. We know how hard it is to stop playing in Outlands. It’s like crack on the keyboard. Or something like that.

I logged into Deadr last night and grabbed about 15 Netherweave bags out of my mailbox 3 days before the letters were going to expire. I’ve made that mistake with Gitr before. That sucked. I lost a Lionheart Helm to the Mailbox Black Hole. Sad, sad day, that was.

I finally got my WoWinsider fix yesterday by finding their RSS feed using Google and added it to my Netvibes. As long as the story isn’t continued, I can keep up to date now. /cheer

I’m off to work for a few hours and going to see the $5 pre-noon Ocean’s 13 show with the wife. What’s up with you guys today?