I’m a tricksy treasure horder

My alts are getting to the levels where I can start gathering some of the fun things, like the treasures of Pandaria and the rare kills. That aspect is more enjoyable to me that the leveling process.

Pandaria Gathering Achievements

There are a set of gathering achievements in Pandaria which are based upon finding low and high quality items which appear randomly throughout the zones. These are generally the domain of the folks who love achievements like “The Loremaster”, which is to date one of the best titles I think there is in the game and which is also actually achievable without a world ending amount of hard grinding. These collection set is Bounty of Pandaria, Finders Keepers, Lost and Found, One Man’s Trash, Riches of Pandaria, and finally Is Another Man’s Treasure (wowhead has a good guide on this). The end goal for all of them is the in-game title “the Relic Hunter“. Another great title, more so because I think the number of players who have it will be rare (around 5%) but also because it demonstrates that the player is dedicated and probably slightly insane.

As of this post I have all those achievements done except “Is Another Man’s Treasure”, which requires the player to find 20x of the special BoA or exceedingly rare items which spawn randomly in the game world. At the moment I am up to 18 of 20 items. So close, which makes it frustrating and rewarding when I get each of the last ones.

Aside – I almost never actually do this type of completionist / gathering / farming / achievement stuff, but I love this type of thing when it gives quasi-tangible rewards. In this case a title, the gold from the low quality items, and the Bind to Account items from the good rares.I am going to pass the BoA items down to my alts, and also hang onto some of them on my Death Knight main as they are actually still oddly and slightly handy.

It feels like this set of “quest chains” were well designed and have tangible rewards directly related to the effort.

There are approx 5-7 more items I could find to get up to the 20 rares found which are needed, but they are the rare of the rare, and often very highly desired. That means farmers, campers, and lots of competition all the time. Even in the short time I’ve been watching some of them I’ve seen regular character also flying past in patterns very similar to mine.

On two occasions I got to an item with a few seconds of somebody arriving, and in one case was beaten to an item by the skin of my teeth.

I am enjoying the challenge immensely.

I am also considering trying to get more than one of some items on my account by farming them with alts as well. The Mining Pick is an example where it gives a +10 to mining skill when carried.

A character wielding two rare weapons might be a tad selfish for all the other Relic Hunters, and a character with two of the same rare can look darn good. A great RP set should try to make others jealous.

Happy Hunting, TyphoonAndrew

Rumour – Final stage Legendary, might not be a weapon…

The final stage reward for the legendary quest might not be a weapon, as hinted by Bashiok in this little thread. Yep, I know that is a rumour, but it raises that question of expectation on rewards for effort. Let the conjecture begin…

It could be that we have a choice of trinket, or any other gear-slot. Given how the rewards through the quests have allowed a choice on reward it makes sense that WoW could reward players with an option.

Would that suck? Kind of, but mostly not. It might fit well.

Kind of sucky as I think getting to THE LEGENDARY is the goal. By tradition in previous expansions these have been weapons, and Pandaria has gone the Gem, Gem Slot, enhancement, and now Cloak route. It is easily conceivable to not be a final weapon.

Take the lore into consideration for a sec too and ponder why Wrathion would give another person a great weapon in the first place. He’s a Black Dragon and they are an evil selfish kind of lot. I wouldn’t trust him to not give us a cursed weapon, and then giggle about it while he attempts to subvert things to his own agenda.

But what if the item was something which is not a fixed mechanical advantage at all?

• Imagine the final reward is a ilevel “high” widget, which always continues to scale to the level to your other highest gear +5. You’d want it, and you’d always want it. Legendary. It could take a trinket slot, add gob-smacking a mounts of two stats, and be done with it. eg. Haste & Mastery +nnnn, with a proc on cast or melee to look swirls and wonderful. I’d want that.
• A reward that allows the wearer to assume a constructed illusory appearance. Like your own little transmog illusion over the top of whatever you wear. No more transmog costs, just this widget in your bags. I’d want that too, especially if I could turn it on and off.

And so on with all sorts of blisteringly cool features which will cause every player to want this item on all their characters. And despite my previous rants about legendary being a little washed out, or the process being odd – that is what they are: something that all toons should desire.

Just a thought, TyphoonAndrew.

Is the bundle sale a sign for Mists?

I’m preempting the calls from forum trolls everywhere that will say the Mists + Cata bundle is a sales driven desperate search for the remaining 10 geeks hidden in a bunker who have not played Warcraft. The game must be failing! See proof! Exclamation!

Get back in your bloody basement and play Farmville (oh, wait).

Or I could suggest that they are looking to convert a few players cheaply so that they continue to play, or return to play. Well der-derp-duh. Good on them. If I was pondering a return I might do this too. This is not Age of Conan, and it is a silly thought to think that wow is anywhere near a decline.

The active players I know are mostly happy. A few bitch and hate some aspects (dailies, valor gates, etc), but for the most part are entertaining themselves and others on a daily basis. Money grab? Maybe. Dead? Bah humbug.

Yes, bad mood today. Rants will continue until the alcohol arrives.

Cheeky Upgrade option in Character Screen

Those cheeky fellows working in Blizzard have plonked an ad for Mists of Pandaria in the character screen you see after login.

It is not subtle or unreasonable, and after my initial reaction of “what the f?” I considered using that to purchase my upgrade.

It makes me ponder if we will see character customisation, race change, name change and such in that screen too. Heck it would even be handy to be able to buy month-by-month time as well. The user is logged in, so might benefit from it. All the special offers for pets and such could be there too.

Are you pondering that already Activision?

MoP Cinematic

I really liked it. Excellent quality animation, decent sound. Nice and fast combat, heavy use of mists and environments, and a few ultra-powerful combat moves which you’d expect characters to have. The panoramic views of the island were good too. Overall very well executed.

New mounts in Mists

MoP will bring players a huge range of mounts, and while that is somewhat expected (being that an expansion should add a ton of new mounts, pets, monster models, etc) – when wowhead gathered them into a single area to preview it really makes an impression. Two favourites – the tiger and the disc mounts. The disc means the toons can fly around like they are those irritating mobs in the Eye of Eternity.

Related articles

• Mists of Pandaria Beta: New collector’s edition pet and mount uncovered (wow.joystiq.com)