SETI and the player count problem
4 hours ago
You know that enfuriating feeling when you are grinding away at a boss, crossing your fingers for that one drop that you want? Over and over and over... and still that damn item for which you've been farming this same stupid boss just Will Not Drop.
What item do I crave? Is it the Spark of Hope perhaps? Maybe the Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff? Not at all, I have both of those, and I've given up farming for Solace of the Defeated or Solace of the Fallen.
But there are two items I want that elude me. They just don't drop in ICC.
Why must you taunt me, Devout skirt? I have killed Baron Rivendare repeatedly over the last two weeks, and still no Devout Skirt. I am missing two items from my Devout set, and it's the skirt and the mantle. This has put a significant hold on all my completionist plans. I have no intention of starting the quest line An Earnest Proposition until I have the full Devout set so that I can capture the moment of the full set effect with a screenshot before turning it in, piece by piece, to acquire my Vestments of the Virtuous set. I know that's not really the process most people followed when originally doing the questline, but this is the way I'm doing it.
I'm 50 quests away from my Loremaster title. The questline that involves turning in the pieces for the Devout set and receiving the Virtuous set is approximately 25 quests. It runs you through just about every last damn dungeon in the Old World. I'm very much looking forward to this questline, as I'm sure it will be the icing on the "Goodbye Pre-Cataclysm Old World" cake.
All that stands in my way is Devout Mantle and Devout Skirt. CURSE YOU.
LOOK AT THOSE NAKED SHOULDERS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had been suffering some pretty severe burnout earlier this summer, as I've mentioned before. Upon reflection, I began to realize that I wasn't necessarily burning out on the game - just raiding.
I know there are a lot of people who only really enjoy raiding. I can sympathize. Truth be told, raiding and dungeons are some of my least favorite aspects of this game. WoW was my first MMO, and I'm still very much an independent player. I prefer to solo my way around the world most of the time. I don't know why I enjoy playing a healer so much if I prefer soloing, but oh well.
So, I'm enjoying the pursuit of achievements. And, it's not just achievements. I am collecting old sets. I have 2/5 of The Postmaster, and 2/5 of the Necropile Raiment as well. I'm going through and collecting every PvE tier set, step by step.
I don't mind soloing dungeons. The vast majority of the old world dungeons are places in which I never set foot while leveling. I hated them. I hated spending hours with a group of people working on these areas. I'm making up for lost time now, and getting a lot of use out of my shadow spec.
In Vanilla WoW, most players never got to see much, if any, raiding. To compensate for that, Blizz developed these vast dungeons, rich with lore and quests, and items that would be used for reputation and crafting. Dungeons like Dire Maul and Blackrock Depths were not just big instanced areas - they were separate cities with their own factions that required large groups to access and enjoy. These were 5 man raids.
Halls of Reflection may be hard for the new 80, and it might even be a fun instance. But Halls of Reflection can't hold a candle to Blackrock Depths. As a Dwarf, Jessabelle sympathizes with Moira, and feels connected to the Dark Iron stronghold.
The Cataclysm is coming, and I don't really care about ICC. Loremaster has been a fantastic pursuit for me, and I can't think of a better way for me to say farewell to the Old World. I am so glad I'm doing this!
What item do I crave? Is it the Spark of Hope perhaps? Maybe the Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff? Not at all, I have both of those, and I've given up farming for Solace of the Defeated or Solace of the Fallen.
But there are two items I want that elude me. They just don't drop in ICC.
Why must you taunt me, Devout skirt? I have killed Baron Rivendare repeatedly over the last two weeks, and still no Devout Skirt. I am missing two items from my Devout set, and it's the skirt and the mantle. This has put a significant hold on all my completionist plans. I have no intention of starting the quest line An Earnest Proposition until I have the full Devout set so that I can capture the moment of the full set effect with a screenshot before turning it in, piece by piece, to acquire my Vestments of the Virtuous set. I know that's not really the process most people followed when originally doing the questline, but this is the way I'm doing it.
I'm 50 quests away from my Loremaster title. The questline that involves turning in the pieces for the Devout set and receiving the Virtuous set is approximately 25 quests. It runs you through just about every last damn dungeon in the Old World. I'm very much looking forward to this questline, as I'm sure it will be the icing on the "Goodbye Pre-Cataclysm Old World" cake.
All that stands in my way is Devout Mantle and Devout Skirt. CURSE YOU.
LOOK AT THOSE NAKED SHOULDERS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had been suffering some pretty severe burnout earlier this summer, as I've mentioned before. Upon reflection, I began to realize that I wasn't necessarily burning out on the game - just raiding.
I know there are a lot of people who only really enjoy raiding. I can sympathize. Truth be told, raiding and dungeons are some of my least favorite aspects of this game. WoW was my first MMO, and I'm still very much an independent player. I prefer to solo my way around the world most of the time. I don't know why I enjoy playing a healer so much if I prefer soloing, but oh well.
So, I'm enjoying the pursuit of achievements. And, it's not just achievements. I am collecting old sets. I have 2/5 of The Postmaster, and 2/5 of the Necropile Raiment as well. I'm going through and collecting every PvE tier set, step by step.
I don't mind soloing dungeons. The vast majority of the old world dungeons are places in which I never set foot while leveling. I hated them. I hated spending hours with a group of people working on these areas. I'm making up for lost time now, and getting a lot of use out of my shadow spec.
In Vanilla WoW, most players never got to see much, if any, raiding. To compensate for that, Blizz developed these vast dungeons, rich with lore and quests, and items that would be used for reputation and crafting. Dungeons like Dire Maul and Blackrock Depths were not just big instanced areas - they were separate cities with their own factions that required large groups to access and enjoy. These were 5 man raids.
Halls of Reflection may be hard for the new 80, and it might even be a fun instance. But Halls of Reflection can't hold a candle to Blackrock Depths. As a Dwarf, Jessabelle sympathizes with Moira, and feels connected to the Dark Iron stronghold.
The Cataclysm is coming, and I don't really care about ICC. Loremaster has been a fantastic pursuit for me, and I can't think of a better way for me to say farewell to the Old World. I am so glad I'm doing this!
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You make a good point about BRD vs HoR.
To me, HoR feels more like a game than the adventure that is BRD, or to put it another way, a trashy fantasy novel vs the Lord Of The Rings. Sure you can get some fun out of it, but there's not really a lot to it. I agree that HoR can't hold a candle to BRD - the latter (and the whole area around it) is really well-designed and looks cool. About the only thing I don't like is how hard it is to navigate, though I guess that's more down to lack of familiarity (I've probably only been there 5 or 6 timeS).
As for Dire Maul, well, I love the feel of it even more than BRD. It's hauntingly beautiful (I'm a sucker for ruins) and very atmospheric, but not quite so oppressive as BRD. Plus it's set in my favourite zone in the old world.
I guess that's also the reason Ulduar is my favourite WotLK raid, too - it feels more like a real place than Naxx or ICC, with far more history.
If there is only one thing you can do before Cataclysm I would recommend going for Loremaster. Even though it can be difficult to get those last 10-20 quests it is well worth it. Leveling through WoW you miss a lot of lore if you only stick to level appropriate quests. Being a human I mostly quested in EK until the 40-ies. Going back as level 80 and doing all the low level zones in Kalimdor reignited my love for the game and I didn't have the hassle of leveling a completely new character. Also as level 80 you can breeze through most of them, you already have a mount and you don't need to get a lot of people together for those group quests.
And at max level there's also a monetary reward - although small - for completing all those quests.
Loremaster is still my preferred title and after the bling factor of the Kingslayer title (whenever I get it *sigh*) wears off I will be going back to it again.
You are brilliant for WAITING. I started the T0.5 questline at 60 with all my set pieces... except my chest.
It took me TWO YEARS to get it, running UBRS every so often. Sixty Drakkisath kills on my hunter. I'd only ever seen it drop ONCE on my paladin.
Very satisfying to finally turn in the helm/chest part. :D
I didn't get to run BRD in vanilla as I wasn't playing wow then, but back in BC, when hubby and I were leveling our lats together with RAF we did a lot of quests in BRD and I'll be honest, I got caught up. figuring out the mystery, coming back over and over to find out that Moira was there off her free will at this point and that heir to the throne of Ironforge is half dark iron? oh my...
I'm working towards Loremaster as well, though I'm not nearly as far along as you are. It just seems like a good way to end the expansion for me. It's fun to find those quests you never came across with any of your toons before.
I've hit a wall with it at the moment though... it seems everytime I log on my rogue to work on it, a guildie or friend is whispering me wanting me to get on my shaman and heal something. Given the choice between raiding and questing... I will choose raiding every time. >.<
Wouldn't a more fair comparison be BRD versus the full SET of three ICC 5-mans, rather than to just HoR alone?
If Blizz was making BRD today, I imagine it might be very similar, but broken up into a series of smaller instances to avoid the "too-many-hours-required" issue that is the core reason so many people never ran BRD and the other huge runs.
@Jahbootie
I think a more fair comparison in that light would be to compare Blackrock Mountain to the 3 ICC 5 mans, since you also had lower blackrock spire which was a 5 man dungeon.
But yes, truthfully, i wouldn't want to spend 5 hours to clear a dungeon. It might be interesting if you could save your spots and revisit it like in a raid, but then you get into the whole complicated factor of lockouts and blah blah blahs and is this a dungeon or a five man raid, and i havent had enough coffee to conceptualize all that.
I'm not saying BRD is better than HoR - but I do think it's more interesting. Unfortunately, in order to make something more interesting with lots of quests and intricacies, you generally have to make it bigger and more complicated and longer.
Sexy neked dwarph shoulders.. Back hair excluded.. :)
I'm so gonna farm for the skirt now, and take a SS when I get it just for you.
(Insert Forsaken Mage Evil Laugh here)
But the bare shoulders are hawt....
Makes the whole ensemble look like an evening gown or something.
BRD is still a favorite, even after having run it a dozen times or so on alts. The stories, the sprawling everything of it.. old school epic. Our first time in, no-one read strats, we set aside a weekend and just went dungeon crawling. 9 hours and 6 wipes later, we took down the Emperor while the holy pally danced with Moira. Just don't make em like that no more.
I applaud your efforts at D2. Like you, I wanted to have a complete D1 screenshot before breaking the set up for D2.. However, I realized the first D2 upgrades are the BoE pieces, so I can up those to D2 and grab replacement D1 pieces from the AH. The big thing is getting through the D2 quests before Cata potentially removes them. This way I can parallel upgrade with getting the last D1 pieces (helm, robe, mantle). I think it's interesting that almost any yokel can get T9, but flashing D2 says yer 'hardcore' ;)
You know, I think it was the shoes and the skirt that took me the longest to get - the two from Undead Stratholme.
Just think: you might get Rivendare's mount in the meantime!
Good luck on your achievements :) I won a costume competition in Ironforge wearing my golden glowing Devine set.
You should transcend your pants and collect Tier 2.