World of Warcraft

Bringing back the buzz

September 3, 2010 by Johnnie Ingram

A great post which I just caught on Six Inch Heals has got me thinking. Sindei’s response to the recent Blog Azeroth shared topic What WoW Taught Me About Real Life is funny but also thought-provoking.

WoW is teaching me how to be a boss. No, not the level 83 Elite kind… the other kind.

I’m relatively new to end-game raiding – by which I mean that, while I’ve been playing World Of Warcraft on and off for some years, it’s only relatively recently that I’ve started to do any serious raiding at all.

The moment our 10-man group finally managed to defeat Arthas was a moment of genuine, endorphin-pumping achievement. It was a tough fight for us, and the successful attempt came after a run of several embarrassing, face-planting wipes. Somehow, this time, everything came together. We fought as a single cohesive unit with no mistakes and a few moments of inspired brilliance (particularly from our tanks).

Doing my real life dailies and weeklies, whether it be Doing the Dishes or Hanging Up Hubby’s Shirts, earns me valuable Spousal Rep which I can leverage into extra WoW time.

While the achievement spam dinged through into guild chat, we all hearthed to Dalaran, switched on our Kingslayer titles and proceeded in a lap of victory through the city. It felt good. We’d done nothing more than move pixels around a screen and make some imaginary numbers fluctuate in an imaginary world, but it felt as concrete an accomplishment as passing a driving test, hitting a home run, or learning Japanese (I’ve subsequently added it to my resume – that’s how proud I am).

I work with a frequently cranky, often unreasonable individual. If I tell you she has a huge aggro radius, and a nasty AOE temper that hits everyone regardless of who taunted her, you can understand my main strategy for dealing with her: I do my best to stay out of range.

Reading the post on Six Inch Heals (which, incidentally, is one of the finest blog names I’ve ever encountered) brought back the emotions of that moment. It’s one of the great things about cooperative MMOs: they teach you social interaction, team dynamics, strategy, perseverance, commitment and the advantage of expertise over guesswork. That’s all too easy to forget when the game becomes little more than a repetitive daily grind while waiting for new content, so it’s nice to read posts like Sindei’s and be reminded.

All quotes from the original post.

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World of Warcraft

The mythical quests of WoW

September 1, 2010 by Hugh Hancock

A really interesting column from WoW.com a couple of days ago highlighted some of the legendary quests of WoW – the half-finished or unfinished quest chains that some players get truly obsessed by.

What exactly was the purpose of the Horizon Scout? What were they carrying that the naga wanted, and why was their story unfinished? Did the developers simply run out of time, or was the chain removed from the original beta and the NPCs left as they were? It’s all up in the air, although the unused quest suggests that Roland and friends may have somehow been responsible for the naga attack, or that perhaps the naga were after Roland’s mana gem.

It covers a couple of little areas of WoW that I’d run into in my time, but didn’t know the full story of. I had no idea that the ship of the shipwrecked sailors in Ashzara was out there, and I didn’t know a thing about the mysterious un-openable chest.

As Cataclysm comes ever closer to totally rewriting World of Warcraft – for the better or the worse we’re yet to see – it’s great to see more and more people delving into the hidden corners of this tremendously deep world, making sure that we get to see it all before it disappears for good.

(I’m a bit uncertain about the “disappears for good” part and whether what amounts to the destruction of a fictional world is a very good idea, but that’s for another article.)

Anything that article misses? Do you have any favourite mysterious parts of WoW?
Quote taken from WoW.com’s article

Wow.com’s homepage can be found at http://www.wow.com.

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A Tale In The Desert, General MMO Interest, How To

TL:DR : A Tale In The Desert: Bricks, grass, and other annoying things.

August 31, 2010 by Hugh Hancock

Rebecca and I have been playing A Tale In The Desert a fair bit recently, and enjoying the hell out of it – it’s incredibly deep and complicated, and there’s always something to learn. Unfortunately, that something often seems to be the tremendously complicated skill that you need to learn before completing the construction you just ground out 2000 bricks for, and now need Something You Can’t Get from Somewhere Bloody Miles Away.

(“Miles”, in ATITD terms, does not mean “one five-minute flight away”. We spent an hour and a half running to get to our local tarpit at one point.)

So, over the next few days we’ll feature a few quick guides to some of the things we’ve tried to build and tripped over the complexities of. (Hopefully this will also serve as a bit of an insight into Tale In The Desert for those who don’t play it yet).

Grass looks to be about the most annoying minigame ever. You need to click the “pick” icon, then step a couple of steps forward, then click the “pick” icon again, step forward… And you’ll need a few hundred grass most of the time.

There are a few tips that speed things up, however:

  • You get straw as a biproduct of processing rotten flax for a loom as well as by drying grass. Since you’ll need All Of Teh Twine In Teh World later on, this is a pretty valid alternate way to make straw.
  • You only need to pick a few hundred grass total before you can set your character to pick it offline. Once you can do that, you’ll basically never need to pick grass again, since one overnight stretch will net you 800 or so grass.
  • Gathering grass doesn’t stop you moving. So, click somewhere on the horizon across a load of grass, and then just click the grass icon whenever it comes up.
  • Alternatively, and in my opinion even quicker, you can simply hold down one of the arrow keys with the chat minimised, and you’ll walk in that direction. Now just stick your mouse over the place where the grass icon comes up, and click when it appears. With a bit of practise you can do this without even looking at the screen.
  • Annoyingly, there appear to be no good fully automated grass-growing macros, probably because it takes less time to get offline grass growing than it does to write the macro.

Bricks are a bit of a PITA to make too. The essential problems with bricks are that they’re very heavy, they require a mixture of ingredients, and they’re made in brick racks, which appear to be made from rotten balsa wood lightly dusted with sulfuric acid, and break into a thousand pieces any time you, another player, or a nearby sheep look at them funny.

  • The key to your brickbuilding process is your brickrack building process. Brick racks can break any time after they’ve been used 5 times – there’s a 1 in 6 chance for any use after the sixth that the’ll break. In my experience, it’s best to assume they’ll break after six uses, and make sure you’ve got enough boards in your inventory to create brickracks equal to your intended number of bricks over 36 (6 bricks per rack and 6 uses per rack). For simplicity, that’s your intended number of bricks divided by 9 in boards.
  • You should definitely use hotkeys for brick creation. Minimise chat, then hold down B and swipe your cursor over your brickracks to fill all the ones within range. Swipe with T to pick up dried bricks.
  • How many brick racks should you create at once? That’s definitely determined by how many you can reach – from experience, if your avatar stands in the middle of 20 racks, you can reach all of them without moving. Any more and you’ll have to move to fill them, which will really slow you down. 20 racks will let you create 120 bricks a time, which isn’t too bad – replace any broken brick racks as soon as you can.
  • My Top Protip Evar on brick production: Build a chest in your house. Half-fill that chest with brick supplies. Then create your brick racks within access distance of that chest. Drop bricks in when you finish them and take supplies out as you need to. IMO, this halves your production time.

Other Stuff that might be useful:

  • Boats look like they might be awesome. However, simple ferry boats can only cross very small rivers. Unless your region has learned how to make advanced ferries (ask in chat), it’s not worth the endless schlep to get tar.
  • If you build structures like distaffs outside, they’ll gradually degrade. Structure repair’s a bit of a pain to learn, so you’re apt to end up with broken buildings and wasted materials. Build ‘em inside your house if at all possible.
  • Travel between regions is actually pretty quick and easy using a Chariot Stop. There’s a list of open routes available on the wiki. If you want to trade for more advanced or rarer materials, a quick bit of travel may be just the ticket.

So that’s it for now. Any tips we’ve missed for simple gathering? Tomorrow, either cooking or sheep. I haven’t decided.

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World of Warcraft

Roundup: Jolly Good Bits n’ Bobs

August 27, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

As I said earlier, I’m going on holiday. Now. And there’s a fair bit of cool bits n’ bobs I’ve not had a chance to share with you yet this week. So it seems fitting to do a roundup post of jolly good stuff, because that’s just how we roll here at the Pot. The items in this post aren’t all thought provoking, aren’t all substantial – they aren’t even all blog posts. But they are all cool, or jolly good, in some way.

So we have:

That’s it for now. Anything shiny you think I’ve missed this week? Maybe something amusing, a most excellent new blog opening, or a breath taking picture?

WoW.com’s homepage is here

Postcards From Azeroth’s homepage is here

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Fortnightly Feedback

Fortnightly Feedback #3 – Before I Go Find The Moonbeams…

August 27, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

This ‘ere fortnightly post is us actively checking in on what you think of MMO Melting Pot; if there’s anything you’d like to see more of, less of, plain changed, or generally what you like/dislike. We don’t promise to act on your opinions right away but we do want to hear em and might well take them on board so long as they’re constructive!

Things look good from our end. We’re thoroughly enjoying reading blogs at the moment. We’re sticking to two or three posts a day so you don’t get bogged down in twenty posts daily, but sometimes it’s hard to pick just two or three things to feature, which is great.

On the advertising side we’re keeping an eye on our ads for goldsellers that need removing. We’re also looking for related websites to throw a hail at, just to let them know we’re around and spread the word. Give us a shout if you have any brainwaves for sites we should introduce ourselves to. We promise to be nice, maybe even provide cookies. 

Now, I’m on holiday next week, doing holiday things … ‘Long baths. Braid my beard. Unbraid it. Lie around, fondling moonbeams, being a lord of leisure’ as Manny Bianco would say.

Except the beard part.

MMO Melting Pot will run just the same in my absence: I’m leaving you in Hugh and Johnnie’s hands. While there may not be as many posts next week they will be posting, and you can still contact us just the same as usual with responses to posts, questions, suggestions or constructive criticism.

But before I go find the moonbeams – how’s MMO Melting Pot doing for you?

Feel free to answer that any way you want. If something’s popped into your mind during the past couple of weeks and you’ve thought “must say X to the folks at Melting Pot” but never found the right moment, now’s a good time. Or, if it helps, perhaps think about how you feel about these topics:

  • Are there any topics you think we’re covering too much, or not enough?
  • Are there any sites we’re glaringly obviously missing from our blogroll, or not featuring, that you think we should be?
  • Are there any better ways you think we could interact with you, and help you interact with other readers? I’m thinking about methods of communication that you might use day-to-day, like twitter or the comment section, for example. Are there any new ways we could implement, or any way we can improve the existing ways to interact?

Looking forward to hearing how things look to you, and have a great week! Feel free to help us out on the goldsellers too – let us some details of any you spot cropping up on the site so we can get rid of them.

See you in a few days, although I suspect you might find me skulking around in the comments area like a lost puppy next week anyway.

Quote taken from Black Books season 2, The Entertainer, found at DylanMoranRules.com.

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World of Warcraft

Big Bear Butt: Help Needed For An In Game Event – For A Good Cause

August 26, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

I swear time flies. I don’t know where the year’s going. Seems John Patricelli is aware of this too as he’s looking to organise an ingame event in a few months’ time for a good cause, and he’s asking for help to start the ball rolling now.

Last year he organised an ingame event called Raid for the Cure in aid of breast cancer awareness. A lot of people joined in and by all accounts, a great time was had by all for a good cause. Well, John’s doing a similar thing this year. This time he’s focussing on a cause that’s touched both him and his wife deeply: Heart Disease. John’s account of why he’s doing this is striking – so much so I recommend you go and read it for yourself.

Being a part of something like that, even for just one day, really reminds me why the ”massively multiplayer” part of this game makes such a difference. We do have the power, all of us together, to … make of it something … with great personal meaning for each us, if we decide we want to.
That is why this year we’d like to organize an in-game event meant to heighten awareness of the risks of heart disease, and to be a time of remembrance and celebration of the lives of those of us we loved, and still miss, that have been taken from us by heart disease.

He’s looking for people. People who can volunteer to help organise. People who are interested in taking part. People who can show support, even if it’s just a few words of encouragement.

If you can do any of that, go let him know in his post’s comments or direct at tigerlordgm AT yahoo DOT com.

At the moment the event’s planned for the Kael’thas US server but there’s nothing stopping it happening on multiple servers anywhere in the world. Let’s help him achieve this, for his and other families, and show the true colours of WoW’s community.

Quote taken directly from John’s post

John’s Big Bear Butt homepage is here

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World of Warcraft

Looking For More: The Nature Of Adventurers

August 26, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

So lately some of us have been worriting about dodgy quests in Azeroth. While that’s a valid concern to pin down, it’s also good to look at the lighter side. That’s exactly what Analogue over at Looking For More is doing today with a brief post looking at just how our characters really are when they’re off out adventuring.

Analogue’s pointing out that while some quests like the torture one in Borean Tundra might cause a rumpus, our characters don’t exactly stop to question the quest givers who ask us to lay waste to their neighbours. Neighbours who may be any range of species from kobold to dwarf and whom might be doing nothing more heinous than knitting, or dusting their prize candle collection.

Then there’s these errands people have us do. We really just… take their word for it that the kobolds are a threat. Honestly, they’re usually sitting in their camps minding their own business. Farmer Bob says they’re a threat, and he’ll give me some nice shoes if I kill them all, but it’s entirely possible he just wants their land for more turnip fields.

Analogue’s post isn’t meant to be overly serious. While it does have a sincere point at its heart, it’s both brilliant and refreshing for providing a touch of lightheartedness. Now excuse me while I go thin the local ostrich population. Real dangerous, those birds.

Funny that the quest giver was standing next to the campfire looking hungry, now I think of it.

Quote taken directly from Analogue’s post

Looking For More’s homepage is here

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World of Warcraft

Roundup: Playing Games For Fun?

August 25, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

Fun. s’What we play games for, right? Well, it’s also a serious topic and one that several bloggers are turning their thoughts to this week. Some of the posts are more dense, some lighter and … fluffier. So rather than just feature one of them I figured I’d do a roundup and let you pick and choose.

There we go. For the record, my favourite zone is Dun Morogh as I have some magical memories of my first character exploring it and leaving footprints in the snow.

Have I missed any ‘fun’ posts, or are you being bombarded by thoughts on the topic? Let us know in the comments, or write somewhere else and throw us the link!

You can find…

  • Raging Monkeys’ homepage here
  • Troll Racials Are Overpowered homepage here
  • Psychochild’s homepage here
  • The Noisy Rogue’s homepage here
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General MMO Interest

Mana Obscura: Is Choosing To Play A Game A Moral Decision For You?

August 25, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

Gazimoff of Mana Obscura caught my attention today with a stealthy fireball of a post asking whether you make moral choices when you choose to play games.

He’s talking about a new game (TERA) that’d previously caught his eye with interesting mechanics and pretty landscapes but the developers sailed out beyond pretty. Beyond, and into the greasy waters of seedy marketing, with oversezualised characters appearing to be their main advertising gimmick. He believes it’s aimed right at a young, white male demographic – a norm we’re trying to move past – and he’s simply not up for partaking in that.

Whether it’s wallpapers, box art or in-game screenshots, it seems that the big focus ins now on emphasising the scantily clad character type as much as possible.

So what’s the big deal? After all, it’s just polygons, right? Doesn’t World of Warcraft have this kind of thing with the infamous Black Mageweave set? Don’t single player games like Bayonetta or Dead Or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball have similar content? Well, yes and no.

It’s an interesting question but as a post it’s not his usual fare. It seems to have taken Gazimoff’s readers unawares, given how much disagreement he’s getting.

How about you? Are there games that you don’t play for moral reasons? And how do they compare to games you do play? Let us or Gazimoff know!

Quote taken directly from Gazimoff’s post

Mana Obscura’s homepage is here

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World of Warcraft

Just My Two Copper: How To Make Some Gold As A Lowbie

August 24, 2010 by Rebecca Judd

Markco over at Just My Two Copper is addressing something that every new character has in common: starting out as fresh adventurer without a copper to their name.

Whether you’re a new or experienced player, starting a new character on the road to heroic deeds is an expensive time what with training, professions and upgrading the clothes on your back so you don’t keel over quite so quickly. But Markco’s showing us how to make some cash simply and affordably; by reselling some of the items available from vendors around big cities.

I remember the first time I entered Orgrimmar on my warrior. All I could think was wow… this place is huge, look at all the buildings and people! As a new player I focused on getting my quests done, exploring the city and then moved on to other areas to keep leveling. I missed out on major gold making opportunities I wish I’d known about back then.

These tips are great for everyone. Not just new characters. Sure, they alolow your new character help themselves off to a comfortable start. But they also help the person choosing to buy your auctions spend their time doing something other than running around a city in return for a couple of gold.

Quote taken directly from Markco’s post

Markco’s Just My Two Copper homepage is here and his Youtube channel is here

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