Zuty the Insane Tinker : Oh the Changes I Would Make ...

That's me :D

I thought I would start a new series here so I could dump all my ideas in one place and refer back to them in the future. As you may or may not know, I am a casual player. I twink casually (by that I mean I don't worry about LFH or AGM) and I eventually level on Zuty from doing quests and grinding off mobs for items/mats. I'm also a forum moderator on Twink Info, so I deal with the community everyday. I'm still no where near as good as any of the regulars, but I don't really stride to be. Anyway, the point is I think that we need a representative for lower PvP/PvE to contact and work with a portion of Blizz to bring back that feeling we all got back in Vanilla during the 1 to 60 grind. I'm talking about interesting quest lines, new rewards, make killing a rare mob actually worth it, etc. Cata is going in the right direction with some of this stuff, but they could have done better.

Some suggestions:

-Fixing classes at lower levels.
    -Rogue's shouldn't have Shadowstep at 10.
    -Hunter's need either a Focus cost on Con Shot or a MUCH longer CD.
    -Shaman's need to have access to Stormstrike rather than Lava Lash.
    -Also, Shaman's that go Enhance should be allowed either a DW or a 2H route.
-Rare mobs should drop 2-4 items that are unique to them rather than a suffix (OF THE) item. They are rare after all.
-Areas of progression should have either a "Tranquillien" set up with rep or what happens in Stonetalon with the Krom'gar quest chain/quartermaster.
     -This would most likely start at 10 and then every 10 levels when a player enters a new zone they are greeted by a main town with a "mini-faction".
     -Players would have access to more equipment including Helms, Shoulders, and Trinkets which are very difficult to get until later levels.
-Guild rep should be gained while doing a dungeon that yields experience as long as you wear the normal guild tabard. Wearing the better quality tabards would yield [50% / 100%] more rep.
-Professions should have more recipes that are either obtained from "rare" vendors or bought from faction vendors. (For example: An Eng recipe requiring a skill of 100 could yield a +5 random stat Helm. A Blacksmith with a +3 random stat trinket. JCing with +2 random stat relics.)

I'll elaborate more on these down the road, but I think that adding a wider array of items to the game will only help. I know that when I am looking up items for my twink or even for alts I am leveling I usually only come across one, maybe two, items that are good until a much later level. Sometimes, there isn't even anything.

~Zuty

Heavy Grinding Stone : Leveling Back in the Day

Sit down kid, I got a story tell you.

"Is this going to be another boring story about the old days of WoW?"

Yes, now STFU and sit down noob. Back when WoW first came out we didn't have these fancy BoA items that increases our experience gain, we didn't have guild perks that increases our guild reputation, hell we didn't get experience for farming materials like you do now when you gather a node. And we didn't have any direction; if an area ran out of quests for us to do, we'd wonder aimlessly till we found an area that didn't contain mobs that would kill us in one hit. I can't tell you how many times I walked through the Plague Lands back when they were a 50+ area on my level 10 Undead character or even getting close to SM where the level 40+ elites would one shot me.

However, grinding in WoW was nowhere NEAR as bad as in other games. Everquest is the first thing that comes to my mind. While I didn't play it too long, I do remember the grind being unbearable and the penalty for death was far, far worse then a corpse run and some durability loss.

"What did you lose? Money?"

Worse, experience. You could actually level down in EverQuest from dying too much; good luck getting out of a high level zone you accidentally ventured into. I really hope the game has changed by now, but at the same time I wish it didn't so that future generations can feel the pain I felt back in those dark times.

"It's not like it's difficult to level."

Watch your mouth kid. 1 to 60 was a nice little climb to the top. And you know what, it was fun from 1 to 60. You had enough time to stop and smell the roses; now, you're rushed through a zone, given some blues, and have your but kicked to a new area where you start all over again. My memory is slowly fading, but I think 1 to 60 took ... a month on average in the days of yore. You could maybe shave a week or even two off if you played 24/7 and knew exactly what to do, but I liked taking my time. I didn't even hit 60 till WSG opened up for the first time, but PvP and tales of twinking are something I will share for another day.

"So what exactly did you do at 60? Doesn't seem like there's much to do."

Are you kidding?! We had MC, Ony, Nef, ZG, AQ, and world bosses. All of which kept us plenty busy. The grind to open the gates of AQ has got to be the greatest thing I ever did in WoW as well as the most fun I've ever had. We had to collect different material and items to go towards the war effort just to open the door, it took months for this to even happen. On top of that, people were rushing around trying to get the AQ mallet to ring the gong outside AQ. The quest line was a long treasure hunt basically and it sent us all across Azeroth. Now, we wait a few patches and the boss is released and ready for us to fight. No cool quest chains leading up to gaining a 'key' to even just open the front door and no turning in items to NPCs to go towards a collective war effort.

"Did you ever get to ring the gong?"

Unfortunately, no. You see, I had a life and while doing the quest did yield a sweet mount along with a unique title, I still wouldn't go back and change what I had done.

~Zuty

Underground Economy: What the Hell Happened to the AH?!

The AH has been a big part of my life. I worked the AH like a Wall Street pro; I would roll up on a new server on an alt, work the AH by selling niche items, and then have enough money for a mount before I was even level 40. There was one time, and I think some of you already know the story, where I had so much gold that I bought everything off the AH and put it back up for 1g bid with a 1g buyout. I single-handily ruined my servers economy for months.


Not to long ago I moved from Burning Blade to Aeire Peak and I decided to roll up on the AH since it had been such a long time. I was SHOCKED to see that every item was overpriced. Now, I don't know if it was because of Cata, boosting the cost of items and throwing the economy into it's own cataclysm, or the server, but it was ridiculous. The price of mats as well as gear was either WAY to expensive or WAY underpriced.

Back in my day, seeing lowbie greens on the AH for 1g+ was not uncommon and was a good way to make money. Obviously, 'of the Boar' gear was cheaper than 'of the Eagle' or 'of the Monkey' gear. I made a good deal of my money running RFC and collecting greens to AH, but the nice of the business I hit were materials and recipes. RFC was a great place to farm cloth and low level recipes. There wasn't a market for it, so I started one off. I usually sold stacks of Linen for 25s buyout (BO), Wool for 40-50s BO, and Silk for 70s-1g BO. Mageweave and Runecloth ranged from 5-10g BO and Felcloth was a pretty big sell too. Even though I made a ton of money from selling a stack of Felcloth or Runecloth/Mageweave when a stack would sell, Linen and Wool were my biggest sellers and I could crank out a stack of Linen a few minutes and Wool was easy enough to get since I could skin Sheep/Rams for it; which is no longer possible.

I then hit the WoW TCG Loot market as soon as the TCG came out. I'll have an article later on about my time playing the TCG, but I played it enough to get a good amount of loot cards. Except for the last 3 sets to come out, I have pulled every loot card at least once EXCEPT for the Spectral Tiger Mount. The first loot card I pulled was the Tabard of Flame, which I used and still have on Zuty. Every loot card afterwards, I would sell either for real money or gold in-game. I made a good amount of real money this way (~750-800$) which I would put back into buying cards, not for the loot, but because I liked playing the game, but I was raking in gold by the truck load. I was one of the original pioneers of this bold new frontier and I even helped thwart the people who lied about having loot cards just to cheat some poor person out of a couple hundred gold.


Anyway, back to the present. I don't understand the AH anymore; not just because I have been out of the game for so long, but I will see an item go for 5g bid/BO and then the same time going for 200g bid/BO. This may just be Aerie Peak's economy, but it is sickening to see the price jumping around so much. I've pretty much decided to just forget the AH and vendor everything. I hate everyone right now ... GJ ruining the economy! ... jerks ...

~Zuty

Old School Ride: Mounts

Back in the day, right before patch 1.1.0, Tauren's didn't have access to mounts. Instead, they had an ability called Plainsrunning which was a lot like the new Worgen ability, Running Wild. Plainsrunning was a tad different; once the Tauren had been walking for 10 seconds, they started to run at the % speed they had trained. When WoW was released and patch 1.1.0 went live, Tauren were given access to Kodo's as a mount and if you were Exalted with one of the main factions, you could then buy/ride their mounts. Unless you were a Tauren or a Night Elf. I remember that Tauren's couldn't use Raptors/Skeletal Warhorses and Night Elves couldn't use Rams/Mechanostriders.

Let's get off the Plainsrunning bit. Mounts cost you an arm and a leg back in the day. None of this '4g for the mount, 1g to train.' bullshit you young whipper-snappers have the privilege of having now. When I hit level 40, I bought the Emerald Raptor. Cost me 10g to train in the riding (already we are double the cost YOU had to pay) and 90g for the mount. NINETY. GOLD. You all pay 4g ... This makes me blind with rage ...

My precious.

Anyway, I had my eyes set on the Ivory Raptor for when I hit 60. I busted my ass, quested, grinded, and farmed until I got to 60 and still was NO WHERE close to the heavy price tag of 1,000g (100g for the training, 900g for the mount). Before you go off and say 'Oh Zuty, I could make 1,000g in 5 minutes, with my eyes closed.' First of all ... shut up and second of all, making gold back in Vanilla was NO WHERE near as easy as it is now. I made a living off of Enchanting and Mining and even then I wasn't making enough money.

And, to top it all off, by the time I had the money for it, the Ivory Raptor was removed.

Me when I found out they removed Ivory Raptor.

~Zuty

A Little About Me...

My mohawk is green and I am old and angry, but you can call me Zuty and I remember Plainsrunning!
Somehow you found my blog mainly for World of Warcraft. I've been playing WoW on and off for 8 years now. And I say 8, because I was in the original, closed beta. This is an EXTREMELY casual blog so you won't find any discussion on "What's best Arena team?" or "Any tips on killing Deathwing?". There are thousands of those blogs about that out there.

I like to talk and poke fun at the "stone age" of WoW, mostly because it's important for players to KNOW THEIR ROOTS. Also it gives a chance for older players to look back with some nostalgia goggles and say "I remember that." while giving new players a look back in time to see how it all started.

Hopefully I don't make you so upset when you realize that Vanilla WoW is in the past and no game, past, present, or future, will be as good as it. I'll also toss up a few of my random thoughts from time to time. So hopefully you stick around and hear me ramble on.

Me in my GM Robes.

~Zuty