Corrupted Ashbringer and the Agony of obtaining it

After being lazy for so long, I decided to finally get the hidden appearance for my [Ashbringer] and the entire process was a bit challenging... For my nerves...

Back in October, when I wrote about how I obtained [Lost Edicts] for [The Silver Hand] I mentioned a guide for obtaining the [Heart of Corruption]. Although we are deep into this expansion and those bothering to read my blog already obtained it, this post will be more of a summary than a guide so, here are my two cents about the whole process.

The entire quest chain follows an in-game "urban legend" where Prince Tortheldrin knows the location of the Ashbringer and that he will reveal it's location to adventurers who prove themselves.

1st step is obtaining two books. [Nat Pagle's Guide to Extreme Anglin'] which can be looted from dead players in Arathi Basin battleground and [A Thoroughly Read Copy of "Nat Pagle's Guide to Extreme Anglin'."] which can be looted from A Dusty Tome in Dire Maul. I got both books from the first try. For Dire Maul farming, I recommend using a Demon Hunter because of his Double Jump, Dash, Moving Speed and mobility. I got my book from the second spawn point shown in the video.

2nd step makes you venture into Blackwing Lair so you can kill Nefarian and obtain [Head of Nefarian]. It is IMPORTANT not to complete the quest obtained while looting the head or you will be forced to wait for raid lockout to end and do the raid again. Like 1st step, this is easily obtainable on first run. BWL is a LVL60 raid instance and a walk in the park, facerolling through the place 1shotting everything on your way... I completed this during Patch 7.1.5 before Razorgore the Untamed was nerfed. The encounter required a bit of a coordination to avoid the room getting blown up. Even though we are LVL110 and this is Vanilla raid, failing the encounter still resulted in you being instantly killed. As of Patch 7.2.5, his ability to destroy the Eggs has been nerfed and made instant cast making his encounter much easier and faster.

3rd step. It's important to note that you need Artifact Knowledge LVL6 before going further. If Paladin is your main character, you are way past this however if you are doing this on your alt, you can't proceed further. Get your AK to LVL6 and then proceed to next step.

4th step requires you to talk to your Head Archivist and Keeper of the Ancient Tomes, Sister Elda. She is the one that helps you acquire Knowledge about your Artifacts and updates Libram of Ancient Kings with new Lore about them. She manages to reassemble the Guide to Extreme Anglin' and gives you [A Complete Copy of "Nat Pagle's Guide to Extreme Anglin'."].

For 5th step, you need to go back to Dire Maul and talk to Prince Tortheldrin. It is important not to kill
Immol'tharbecause that will make Prince hostile to you. He tells you that a Female Dwarf / Male Tauren recently passed through with the same question as yourself and that, should you wish to learn more, you should find them.

So... 6th step takes you to Alexia Ironknife at Chillwind Camp / Bardu Sharpeye at Tirisfal Glades. They send you to Hearthglen in Western Plaguelands and tell you about a Scarlet Crusade Mage that has been creating powerful weapons.

7th step. Go to Hearthglen and read Grand Inquisitor Isillien's Journal located at coordinates 42.36 18.73. The Journal tells the story how the Mage has been killed and his body dumped near Thondroril River so that his body can be eaten by particularly large slime.

AND THIS IS WHERE THE AGONY BEGINS.
AT THE VERY END...

Step 8. Large Vile Slime. An NPC that is easily killed with respawn timer ranging from 3 to 30 hours... I have been camping this Vile creature for 5 days without luck... Some people report that they have been camping even longer...

Now, don't paint me crazy. I wasn't sitting at my computer 5 days in a row and it never spawned. Because of Real Life obligations, I could only spare a couple of hours per day, during peak hours where the chance that he has been spawned and killed just before I logged in is rather high. So, for those 5 days, I came from work, logged in, placed WoW in background and then watched movies and catching up to missed episodes of some TV Shows that I followed.

On the 5th day, I forgot to log out and fell asleep while watching the movie from the comfort of my bed. When I woke up at 6AM the next day, as I was preparing myself to go to work, I looked at the login screen and decided to take a peek and I did not regret the decision...

Logged in, saw it spawned, killed the damn thing, looted the [Timolain's Phylactery], turned off my computer and went to work happy with myself.

Step 9. After coming back from work, I used the Phylactery and the Lich told me that he threw the crystal into the river hoping that someone would eventually find it.

Step 10. Fishing out the [Shard of Darkness]. RNG based drop with a chance lower than 1%. People have been debating which step was more mind numbing, 8 or 10. Some people reported about getting it within a few dozen casts while others talk about spending hours and hours fishing with no luck with casting numbers ranging from around couple hundreds to even several thousands.

Personally, I got the shard in less than 15 minutes with my fishing leveling up from 34 to 81. 47 casts. Not bad, considering the reports...

Final Step. Go back to your Order Hall and talk to Lord Maxwell Tyrosus. If he is not around the table, wait for him to return from the mission. He'll give you a quest, sending you to (Legion) Acherus: The Ebon Hold to seek the assistance of Death Knights so you can bind the Shard to your weapon, bringing the whole ordeal to an end...

In retrospect, the entire chain apart from Camping and Fishing was fun and interesting to do. Since I love the Lore it was informative for me. In my honest opinion, Camping part could have been replaced by some kind of challenge, some kind of logical mechanism you need to figure out so you can get to the Slime, or even gathering/grinding for materials in order to summon it. Just sitting in one place and camping is mind numbing and excruciatingly boring and it could have been done better. Overall, it is a nice flavor thing to have.

LEGEN... Wait for it... DARY!!!

Highlord Exodiüs
Undead Paladin, Knight of the Silver Hand

So, it's been around 2 months since Legion launched and today, I got myself a first Legendary item,

[Chain of Thrayn].

Don't pay attention to my bags. I just completed a session of 15-ish World Quests...

It dropped from Val'sharah Emissary Quest and, thank god I did not get [Prydaz]. Now, this may look as complaining, but... I have seen so many reports lately, especially in case of [Prydaz]. That is, designed specially for Tanks, ungrateful AF, useless item and you see it's uselessness by reading first line in it's passive effect:

After not taking damage for 5 sec, you gain an absorb shield...

And in how many cases will it happen that a tank won't take damage for 5 seconds, in a dungeon/raid encounter, when boss stacks 10 DoTs and 15 Bleeds. I am not gonna talk about open world encounters. Many legendary items have weird, confusing or useless passive effects like this. What good would that item do if I had obtained it?

On a bright note, Blizzard devs mentioned that they will revisit Legendary passive effects and redesign some of the "less cool" ones, while mentioning [Prydaz] specifically so, that's a plus.

I also adopted two orphans yesterday, new additions to the Battle Pet family. [Snowfeather] and [Bloodgazer] Hatchlings are great new prospects, already on their way to grow up into awesome mounts.

World of WarCraft: Legion, breakdown and thoughts

 The Burning Legion has returned!

WE ARE NOT PREPARED!

Now that THAT is out of the way, I can resume.

It all started nicely. 6PM, Blizzard's GamesCom stream started, I got lost into all the information that was in front of me that I forgot that I have a Blog and Facebook page where I could write down few words in order to, maybe, get more readers. I started spamming our Facebook page and then I realized what time it is... Time to go to work, so... With me being late, you could have already snatched all these news from MMO-Champion and WoWhead but, regardless, I will post a breakdown of things that are interesting to me.

Next expansion's name will be "Legion" and new continent will be The Broken Isles. You guessed it right, we will finally be battling against The Burning Legion. Gul'dan has survived the encounter against Archimonde in Hellfire Citadel and has sinister things on his mind.

First off, we all know that during The Burning Crusade expansion, we killed Illidan. After Adventurers (Players) dealt with him, it was not explained what happened to his body. When it was announced at BlizzCon 2013 that Illidan may return because, as Chris Metzen stated, he is a "sucker for good redemption story" there have been theories about Illidan's soul being stored in Reliquary of Souls and that that was the way he will be "resurrected" into the lore, however... As it turns out, legend holds that Warden Maiev Shadowsong took his broken body to the Vault of the Wardens so that Illidan's dark, lingering soul could suffer the rest of his eternal sentence, along with his followers, the feared Illidari. Justice to be forever served…

Level Cap is increased to 110 and this expansion introduces 2nd Hero Class: Demon Hunters. As my friend said "As a Warlock who enjoyed playing with a Hunter, that sounds really interesting..." (greetings to Tsuki). Back when all was in it's speculation phases about Demon Hunters being next Hero Class, my hope about their introduction was something similar to the story of Knights of the Ebon Blade and their separation from The Lich King. Story starts when you are a member of Illidari forces and then through quests you get to the point where Illidan is dead. Using in consideration that faction has no leader, player choses to align himself with Alliance or Horde. That was my speculation but we will see how will they make it because it was announced that Demon Hunters will have a unique starting experience and that they will start at a high level.

It was announced that DHs will have 2 specializations. Havok (DPS Spec) and Vengeance (Tank Spec), they will have horns (with no horns as an option) and variations of tattoos on our bodies. Main resource for fueling Demon Hunter's spells will be Fury with Double Jump feature and Spectral Sight that will allow you to see through walls.

Garrison and Followers are a feature that are being brought to The Broken Isles in a form of Class Orders. You will be the leader of your Class Order and it will work in a similar way to Death Knight's starting zone where only members of your Class can visit your Order. Shaman's Order will be in a cave near The Maelstrom (because, Elements), Paladin Order will be under Light's Hope Chapel (because, Light), Warlocks will be on a Legion Portal World (because, they are dark and twisted bastards)... You aren't gathering Followers but Champions and they won't be arsed to be your slaves and do everything for you. They will help you find things and then you will need to get your shit yourself.

It looks like, instead of The Park in Stormwind, Dalaran will be flown to The Broken Isles, it will serve as main hub of the expansion and we will FINALLY see Alleria and Turalyon.

It was said that "we will be shocked"... What did Jaina do this time? She lost it, didn't she? Using in consideration that Khadgar is presented as the leader of Kirin Tor and Jaina dropped of the face of the earth... It's quite possible.

As we all know, in present Lore, Emerald Dream and it's corruption has happened so... "We go to Val'Sharah, a forgotten Druid refuge. The place Malfurion became the first Druid. We face Xavius, who is trying to unleash the Emerald Nightmare into our world. We enter Black Rook Hold." Is Xavius attempting to corrupt the Emerald Dream again? They already told the story about it through books and this would make a lot of sense if it was connected to Alternate Universe because, according to AU timeline, that part of the story didn't happen yet.

Another introduction are 36 Artifacts, one for each Character Specialization. Retribution Paladins will seek [The Ashbringer], Enhancement Shamans will be looking for [Doomhammer], Mistweaver Monks will go to Pandaria and look for Emperor Shaohao's [Sheilun, Staff of the Mists], Fire Mages will be burning people for [Felo'melorn], Feral and Guardian druids will be set on a path to get [Fangs of the First Nightsaber] which will allow them to customize their form.

Frost Death Knight will seek out [Frostmourne]'s shards in Icecrown Citadel and reforge them into a pair of Runeblades, [Icebringer] and [Soulreaper].
Blood Death Knights will be sent on a path to obtain [Maw of the Damned], two handed axe that steals the life force of it's enemies, bleeding dry anything it touches.
Unholy Death Knights get [Soulrend] (not much info about it so far).

This totally sucks because I had hoped (and still do) that Unholy Death Knights will get to reforge THE Frostmourne. Frost DKs go to Icecrown Citadel and look for Frostmourne's shards. They get them and out of those shards, they forge two Runeblades? Why? There has been several instances where shattered sword was reforged back to it's former glory, prime example being [Quel'Delar], a weapon of legendary fame.

In another news:

• Overwatch was added to our Battle.Net launchers;
• Patch 6.2.2 was flagged as "Release" on PTRs and we will get Mercenary Mode and Flying in Draenor really soon;
• WoW is down to 5.6 Million Subscribers which is down 1.5 million from the Q1 2015 call that listed WoW at 7.1 million subscribers.

For now, this is what interests me the most... If you want a detailed breakdown of news, check out articles of MMO-Champion, WoWhead or simply watch the recording of the stream...

One more thing. Webpage for Legion is up and running. You can grab wallpapers and learn few more things that weren't mentioned here...

Until next time...

Hellfire Citadel is final Raid of the Expansion?

First off, if you want your own [Corrupted Dreadwing] then go and farm Apexis. This week (July 3-6) is Apexis Crystal Bonus Weekend where creatures eligible for dropping it give increased amounts of it. This rule does not apply to Quest/Event Rewards. You don't need much, only 150.000 [Apexis Crystals] (he said sarcastically). Another interesting thing that you can buy is [Rukhmar's Sacred Memory] which along with [Cursed Feather of Ikzan] and [Time-Lost Figurine] makes a nice trio of Arakkoa Transformation toys.

Cory Stockton (@mumper) gave an interview earlier this week and he said that "Hellfire Citadel is currently planned to be the last raid of the expansion" which is, kinda, a let down. Using in consideration all previous expansions had 3-4 major Content Patches and Draenor had only 2, with shitload of negative feedback received from players makes me think they are trying to abandon Draenor as soon as possible and start their focus on new storyline. What will be a new Storyline? We'll probably find that out on this year's BlizzCon that will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center on November 6-7, 2015.

Hellfire Citadel Loading Screen

If 6.2 is the final (major) Patch for WoD, we'll be stuck with it for 5 months, plus the time since announcement 'till release of the new expansion, which seams highly unlikely given that they have been constantly flamed when ever there was a time-gap where nothing is released (example being gap between end of Orgrimmar Siege and our venture into Draenor) and it is supported with his Cory's response:

There isn't anything to announce about future patches, but part of that comes down to how Patch 6.2 plays out. How far players progress in Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle will give the team an idea of how long the content will last.

Which means, if Citadel is received with positive feedback, we may see at least 1 more Raid but, that's just my speculation.

It is sad that Plains of Farahlon weren't implemented into the game as it was intended originally. It would have be nice to see what Netherstorm looked like before Ner'zhul's portals ripped Draenor apart (in Main Universe).

Patch 6.2: Some thoughts...

I honestly don't know what was I expecting. I mean, I was expecting something but I didn't know what. So far, situation is so hectic that it is pretty close to impossible to kill a Rare Creature unless you accidentally aggro it while walking along it's spawn point or you join a group of "Rare Hunters" that are camping them and announcing themselves on General Channel.

In correlation with the release of the Patch, price of [WoW Token] jumped by about 10.000 gold over night and it's current price is ~53.000 gold per Token on EU realms while price on US realms stands steady at ~25.000 gold pieces per Token. (Source: WoWTokenInfo, 27.06.2015.)

 [Cursed Feather of Ikzan] dropped by High Priest Ikzan. Why isn't this classified as a Toy?

Overall, Tanaan Jungle has the same vibe that Timeless Isle had only bigger. Vast area with lots of Achievements, Treasures, Rare Creatures that drop ILVL650 Baleful Tokens which are useless if you are seasoned Raider that's a member of the Guild with a Raid Progression... But very useful thing if you are gearing up an Alt Character as iLVL650 is minimum requirement (announced by Blizzard Devs) in order to even be considered for Normal version of Hellfire Citadel.

Timewalking event was finally implemented and it brought a bit of Nostalgic feel to the game. You can queue through RDF for it and band up with 4 other players to re-live old dungeons as it was meant to be played rather than going back as High Level player and facerolling through. Currently available dungeons are from TBC era: The Arcatraz, The Black Morass, Mana-Tombs, The Shattered Halls and The Slave Pens. Timewalking is a Weekend event that lasts for 3 days and will end on Monday. Next Weekend event will be Apexis Bonus event where drop of Apexis Crystals will be multiplied and they will be found more often while looting. Next Timewalking event will happen on July 17th when we will have the chance to tackle down WotLK dungeons in same manner.

Mythic Dungeons are finally opened. Same Dungeons only a bit more challenging. They are on a weekly lockout, drop item level 685 gear, and allow you to use [Seal of Inevitable Fate] for bonus rolls. Speaking of Seals, cap for [Seals of Tempered Fate] was increased to 20 and you can buy them at your Tanaan faction hub vendors for 300 gold pieces per Seal.

In "Garrison Related" news, I created The Shipyard and for a moment everything looked awesome. Then I found out that I need to grind reputations so I can obtain more ships and I got easily bored by it. As every ship has a chance to be destroyed if mission fails (win chance less than 100%) and because I am Resource Efficient, The Shipyard won't see my foot setting onto it's soil for a while now because all current available missions has a chance of success around 50%, which are odds that I don't like at all. Especially if Rare ship is in question.

Drop chance of Salvage Crates was nerfed and you will see them in less quantities than you could. High-value Gold follower missions are nerfed and you will see less of them, especially on your alts. (Since it is semi-related to the Garrison) Ashran's grouping system was nerfed and you can't queue for it while in Raid group so, goodbye Nemesis pre-made groups... Profession cooldowns and Buildings yield double amounts of materials now and you get twice as much as before. Profession Upgrade Tokens underwent a change so it could be easier to create them and amount of materials needed to create them has been normalized. And for some god damn reason, we are getting dismounted AGAIN while interacting with finished Work Orders.

Flying in WoW excluded in further expansions?

There have been several instances where Blizzard developers have posted Tweets and replies on forums that flying will not be introduced in Draenor. The initial plan was to introduce flying in some later patch has changed and, as it seems, there are plans not to include this feature in future expansions as well. Latest news came from interview given by lead WoW designer Ion Hazzikostas (@WatcherDev) to Polygon that said:

"Having looked at how flying has played out in the old world in the last couple of expansions, we realized that while we were doing it out of this ingrained habit after we introduced flying in The Burning Crusade, it actually detracted from gameplay in a whole lot of ways. While there was certainly convenience in being able to completely explore the world in three dimensions, that also came at the expense of gameplay like targeted exploration, like trying to figure out what's in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up there."

Although I agree that by not introducing flying into the expansion at it's start gameplay brought us to the nostalgic times of Vanilla, this does not mean that it will work all the time. To address one particular line in the quote, what happens when people get bored of "figuring out what's in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up there"?

With release of Warlords, another feature was implemented into the game: Character Boost. You get one charge of it when you buy Warlords license key and you need to pay for every subsequent Boost. With it, you get a pre-set, pre-equipped LVL90 character with whom you can skip menial leveling and start bashing Iron Horde skulls. With changes done to Heirloom System in Patch 6.1, that menial leveling got even easier and faster than before. I don't know the exact statistic but, I can say with certainty that with these 2 features alone majority of WoW player base became "Altoholics". The amount of people that would have used the boost on a Banker Character and then never used it for anything else than Banking is very low so, I can say safely that number of characters created is closer to 1 Billion compared 500 Million (revealed in Infographic released by Blizzard last year).

I, myself, have two Max Level Characters (DK and Hunter), LVL93 Warlock, LVL90 Druid, LVL73 Hunter and Warrior that I am currently leveling (together with Redub, co-author on the Blog) and, although I am a small fish in a big pond when compared to people who by now have dozens of Max Level Alts, I can say that I am bored of exploring same zones over and over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, it feels amazing when you dwell into a new zone (or a continent) for the first time and you don't can't fly. You are constantly on alert and you need to chose your path wisely not to attract 1 creature too many that can dismount you and get you killed. It's even suspenseful on a PvP realms where you need to factor in that there could be an enemy nearby, waiting for you to fully focus on a quest so he can exploit the weakness and steamroll through you.

I am grateful that Flying wasn't removed when Cataclysm was released. All that old, yet new, content that needed to be explored, quests completed, rare creatures killed. It would have been pain in the ass if Flying was not present. It felt awesome to quest in Pandaria without flying and skipping content but it was relieving that you could learn to fly at some point because, lets face it, Pandaria is one big-ass continent. I also loved the fact that you could not fly on Isle of Thunder because of weather and Timeless Isle because of Time anomalies.

Leveling and Exploration of Draenor is, also, rewarding in its own way. When I leveled my Death Knight (Main Character) I explored every corner of the land. Completed all quests in every Zone, read through all the quest lines, finished every Bonus Objective, Explored every Zone, collected all Followers, killed ALL Rare creatures and gathered all Treasures and feeling was epic. I spent most of my time breaking back of my [Raven Lord] and I used Flight Paths only to bridge huge gaps on my path. When my Guildies were bragging how it took them less than one day to level up, I was proud that it took me six days.

However, when I started leveling my first Alt (Hunter) I became bored of repetition that will follow with his and with leveling of all other alts. I didn't explore all zones to their full extent, I didn't finish every Bonus Objective, I completed just enough quests in the zone to reach level requirement for next one, killed Rare creatures and gathered Treasures only that gave items related to my class totally avoiding everything else and when I hit 100 I joined the band wagon of endless Dungeon & Raid grind. Why? Because, we get easily bored of repetition and by being forced to do the same things all over again, we always look for an easy way out. It's in our nature to do so.

As I wrote, I am a small fish in a big pond of players and if I am bored of "figuring out what's in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up there" after leveling two Characters I can only imagine how other people, that have five, six, ten Alts, feel.

And, then, there is the case of Flying Mounts being added to Achievement Rewards and Vendors (such as [Reins of the Corrupted Dreadwing]) or Blizzard Store with all of them, but especially last three Draenor Inspired, being Flying Mounts ([Iron Skyreaver], [Warforged Nightmare], [Grinning Reaver]). Even next mount from the Store, [Mystic Runesaber], is a Flying Mount. Or what about "Warlords of Draenor: Collector's Edition Mount", [Dread Raven]? We spend most of our In-Game time in Draenor and I understand that whole batch of Ground Mounts were added, be it from Vendors, Garrison, Achievements, but... What's the point of adding all those Flying Mounts into the game if we will be able to use them only when we visit old content?

What I am trying to say is, I feel they shouldn't exclude the idea of "Flying in Draenor" altogether. It should be kept on the table for release at some point. Maybe release it in final Patch of expansion and make our lives a bit easier. Not being able to fly right-of-the-bat when you enter new expansion is a nice perk but, removing it altogether is not a very pleasant idea.

Ehh, crap...

Do you remember that rant from few days ago regarding the [Infernal Direwolf]? Well, I don't know whether we should be even madder than then or should we not...

  

What happened was that gorgeous Direwolf will be an achievement reward for [Glory of the Hellfire Raider] because they traded the place with previous reward for that achievement, [Reins of the Corrupted Dreadwing], which will now be sold at the vendor for 150.000 [Apexis Crystals]. If I could go back in time I would ask people (and myself) not to flame Blizzard for placing Direwolf as a Vendor mount because I would rather have the Dreadwing as achievement reward. And, while some people are pissed off because re-color of "Collector's Edition" mount is being given as a reward, I am still pissed that it requires 150.000 Crystals and farming them is worse than farming a reputation for one of the factions in WoD...

 

New mount has joined the ranks at the Blizzard Store. [Mystic Runesaber] is 10th mount created specifically for the Store and it has a price tag of $25.

Look at all...

As a Gamer, this is a really nice time-period to be living. Looking back at current releases and games released in past year (or so), The Evil Within's hype dropped down, Dying Light still looks interesting and I love upgraded mechanics "transfered" from Dead Island games, Batman: Arkham franchise is getting better with each and every sequel (and a prequel), The Witcher 3 was reviewed as "one of the best games ever made" by GameSpot, GTA V for PC was released and Modders are having a blast with it and Assassin's Creed franchise just won't die (talk about milking a cow) as they released a next installment titled "Syndicate"...

As someone who likes playing games, I am thrilled by some announces and disappointed by others.

Back when Assassin's Creed's first game was released, it was good. Game became better (both Story wise AND mechanic wise) with Assassin's Creed II (and it's stand-alone expansions) but then, you could see that developers started choking out when Assassin's Creed III came out. They finished the original trilogy by killing off Desmond, the main protagonist, and then started "milking the cow" I mentioned earlier with each subsequent game that has the name "Assassin's Creed" in it. I didn't play anything past Revelations (except Rogue), and from what I've seen on YouTube (and reading the stories), in my honest opinion, III was mediocre, Black Flag was interesting, Rogue is (although having THE best optimized engine for PC and I can play it, surprisingly) the most boring of them all. The best example of the developers choking would be Unity and (although glitches were Patched), boy, did the reviewers and YouTubers had a field day with that game. Syndicate is a next chapter and we'll see what it brings.

The reason I mentioned The Evil Within is because there was a big ass hype going around the game when it was announced and even bigger hype after first level playthrough was released on the Showcases. Why? Because Shinji Mikami was behind the development process. For those that don't know, Mikami is father of Resident Evil franchise and, using in consideration what CAPCOM did with it, hype was there with a reason. Until the game was released... He was involved in development of Resident Evil 1 through 4 (and that was the last "true" chapter of the franchise) and I gotta say that, as someone who was loved RE 1 through 4, I was disappointed when The Evil Within, which was announced as successor to Resident Evil by some people, didn't turn out to be better than RE4.

Batman: Arkham series is one of the best action games made. I played Arkham Asylum and Arkham City and I liked the games for every minute I played them. RockSteady really did a nice one with this series. Sadly, I didn't play Arkham Origins nor will I play Arkham Knight for reasons I will explain later...

The Witcher is the game that I fell in love with after first few minutes into the game. I've heard my friend talking about the game when it was released back 2007., and being an RPG lover I decided to give it a try and I was hooked ever since. Assassins of Kings made me love the story even more and watching Gameplay videos for The Wild Hunt made me (figuratively) jizz in my pants.

Another fantasy universe I adored is Mass Effect. A complex trilogy (with 3rd game a bit bleaker than first 2) with fascinating storytelling and vivid characters. Played and re-played all games a few times already with plans to do it again soon... A "must play" game for everyone that loves Action-RPG. New game set in this universe was announced back in 2012 with planned release in 2016. Not much is known about the game at this point but, hopefully, it will be awesome as previous ones.

There are really nice games being released but, the reality of the situation is far more grave for most of us. As technology gets better with each passing month, our gaming rigs are becoming more and more out of touch and some of us simply can't keep up. When I bought my PC, it was a mid-entry gaming PC. AMD Athlon64 4000+, 3GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 8600GTS, WD 320GB 7200rpm and it serves me well even now with few modifications. By today's standards, my gaming rig became obsolete about 2 years ago when Crysis 3 was released and my PC started dropping frame rate on the first mission. About a year before that, my 8600GTS burned out and started showing artifacts on screen. After spending some time with inferior 6600GT (borrowed from a friend) I bought GT440 that I am currently using (rest of the configuration was not changed). I did, however, notice that I could not play games the same way I did when I had 8600GTS even though GT440 is newer and superior.

Games have lower FPS, they tend to stutter, loading time is bigger and that makes me think that it wasn't just my 8600GTS that broke that day however, living in a country that makes it hard to find stable employment, it is impossible for me to replace anything. And, once again, awesome games got released and are about to be released. Starting with The Witcher 3. I guess that's one of the reasons why I talked Redub into hosting these streaming sessions. Seeing how some streamers earn, literally, shitload of money and the fact that I love playing games as much as them, I figured that I will get to be as half as entertaining as they are at some point.

Overpriced shit...

You know, sometimes I miss the good old days. It was really simple. You knew that, in order to obtain a Mount or a cool Transmog piece of Gear, you had to endlessly grind a reputation. Grinding usually ends when you reach a point where blood starts pouring from your eyes and fingernails start to fall out... Grindfest... And, back in the day, it was fun. You grind 'till you bore the fuck out of yourself and then some.

Nowadays, you need to grind reputations which is sometimes more annoying to grind than back in Vanilla and when you finish grinding it, you need two currencies to buy it. One of which is a grindfest in itself. I just saw the 6.2 Patch notes for WoW PTR and among everything I saw new mount, [Infernal Direwolf], which can be bought from vendor for 100.000 gold PLUS 150.000 [Apexis Crystals]. Overkill much? Just for a comparison, all other Draenor (Vendor) mounts are sold for 5.000 gold + 5.000 Apexis Crystals (except [Mosshide Riverwallow] that requires 50.000 gold) I mean, it's cool to bump up the price of something that looks cooler than previous iteration but, c'mon, this is ridiculous.

There's an outrage on WoWhead, Reddit and even Official Forums and, as a casual player that does not spend that much time in-game, I agree... It's just too much and, using in consideration that this is still PTR value, I hope it gets nerfed.

Along with that, new things revealed in 6.2 Patch notes are Rewards from Garrison Shipyard Missions. New pet, new mount, toy, follower upgrade, Honor & Conquest token...

New reputation item has appeared, [Trade Agreement: Arakkoa Outcasts], that increases the size of your Garrison cache by 1000. (Current cache cap is 500 Resources). Dawn-Seeker Krisek, vendor who sells the Agreement will also start selling [Seals of Temepered Fate] for 300g/piece.

Me Nemesis Is Su Nemesis

NOTE: This "feature" was nerfed in Patch 6.2. You can no longer queue for Ashran in pre-made raid groups.

Original Article follows.

Is it just me or Blizzard didn't think these quests through when they were implementing Quests and Achievements for Gladiator Sanctum? I mean, yeah... The concept must have been awesome on a paper but, it sucks ass when it is implemented in-game.

Idea behind it is awesome... Get a quest, go to the best place to farm kills (which is Ashran), hunt down your enemies and when you hit a number of 500 <insert race here> deaths you get rewarded with a title... The Death Stalker, Orcslayer, The Butcher, Gnomebane, Terror of the Tushui, and even the Meta Achievement / Title Warlord of Draenor are awesome. Cross-Realm system and Connected Realms only make things piss easy to obtain some of them, obtaining others is a living hell. Why? Race imbalance.

Older races (expansion wise) have best chances of completing your quests. The chances are that you can get 500 kills for each Orcs, Undead, Trolls, Tauren (as Alliance) and Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves (as Horde) quests in one or two days. As I already mentioned, I am not a PvP player. I am doing these quests only because A: Achievements and B: Titles. It took me about an hour to get ~400 kills for Orcs.

Blood Elves and Draenei are also popular races so, you won't have problem obtaining those as well. Although Blizzard got flamed on announcement, Worgen were more popular in character creation than Goblins, from what I have seen during my time spent in-game. From what I have observed, completing quests for these can go from about a week to a full month.

And then, we come to the worst race to make Nemesis of... Pandaren.

From an "April fools" joke, through Heroic Unit in WarCraft III, to Playable Race with vast Lore in World of WarCraft, this (youngest) race is THE MOST FUCKED UP TO HUNT. I have seen crapload of people crying and QQing in Guild and Ashran chat how they took the quest "god knows when" and it took them really long time to get it.

There is an upside for all of this... Open your group finder and search for Premade Nemesis Groups.

You will see something like this:

You see how there are numbered groups? In every specific group are placed players that have a specific quest. That's because you can get 5 kills for a single kill if all your party members are on the same quest and are in range when the killshot happens. So, at least there is some upside to all this. You can even find someone and pay him a few hundred golds to stand in place and get chain-killed. Just be sure to find 4 more people that are on same quest as you are.

Retards of the Auction House

There is nothing worse than getting pissed off over some random and not that important thing. Be it some random douchebag hunter that trolls the entire raid with [Aspect of the Pack] turned on, scumbag that does not move out of the fire and then flames healers for "being useless" or fucking greavers that are corpse-camping you even though they don't have any in-game benefit because they are usually 50-80 levels higher than you. I guess they weren't breastfed when they were babies and lack of that exhibits as need to torture random lowbies and newbies. It's one of the reasons I hate playing on PvP realm, mostly because I know shit about PvP. But, that's the story for another time.

Another branch of people that I hate in WoW are Retards of the Auction House (in further text RotAH). These are people that:

a) Don't know how Auction House functions;
b) Don't want to know how Auction House functions;
c) Don't give a shit about anything related to Auction House
d) Profit through trolling on Auction House.

These people, also, don't seem to notice that even game such as WoW has it's own in-game economy that gets ruined with every small move that they make.

Let me get something straight. I am a casual PvE player. I don't "play the Auction House" and I am not earning tons of gold. With introduction of [WoW Token] in upcoming Patch 6.2, I will be making just enough so that I can afford next month to play.

Everyone knows what Undercutting is. My rant is, however, aimed mostly towards players that do not understand how functional undercutting works. Why do I call it "Functional Undercutting"?

Lets take a look at definition itself:

undercut, verb: offer goods or services at a lower price than (a competitor).

So, the way I see it, Effective Undercutting is when Player A offers [Tabard of the Lightbringer] at a price of 50.000 gold and then you place your own auction asking for 49.500 or 49.000 gold, undercutting original price by 1 or 2%. IF (or WHEN) Player C comes along, and wants to place his own auction, he does the same and undercuts my auction by the same amount that I did placing his auction for 48.500 or 48.000 gold. That way, average price of the Tabard stays more or less equal for a longer period.

Ineffective Undercutting is when I go to the Auction House and offer [Tabard of the Lightbringer] at a price of 50.000 gold and then comes some random douchebag and offers the tabard at the price of 30.000 gold and then, the next one comes and lowers the price even more (15.000 gold, for example).

This, in itself is both bad and good thing. Why is it bad? Because in some cases, for some items, a set period of time needs to pass before price can be corrected back to the original value... In most cases, value can be corrected back immediately without any problem but in some cases, people will avoid such an item by saying that "price is inflated" and that "item was much cheaper earlier / yesterday" even though rarity of the item dictates high price.

Right now, I am not dealing with items of high rarity. I have some auctions for herbs, Augments and mostly gear that has Transmogrification Potential. As an example, this is what I encountered in AH today:

Pieces of [The Forgotten Peacekeeper] item set, that I am trying to sell on AH, resemble Freethinker's Armor, removed Zul'Gurub paladin set. In itself, it's Transmog value is high and price should not be too high because pieces are rare, but not THAT rare. I came across ridiculously high and ridiculously low auction prices.

You can see very good example of Ineffective Undercutting.

• Pants: 2 Auctions of 500g, undercut Auction of 244g and all subsequent undercut auctions that start under 170g, ruining the price of the auction.

• Shoulders: Ridiculous auction of 75.000g, followed by realistic price of the item ~3.000g and then ineffective undercuts of 530g and even worse for a price of less than 100g.

Good thing is, if you are willing to risk, you can buy Ineffective Undercut (for example, the undercuts placed at 100g) and then sell it at the original price in a few days, after the price gets corrected. It's the same principle used in Auction Sniping. Downside of this, is that, although they have good Transmog Value people don't buy them that often. You will usually spend several days re-posting the auctions before someone buys the items.

Another type of people that I hate in-game, that fall under RotAH group, are trolls. These people usually dump enormously high amount of materials into the AH, all in the stacks of 1... Example:

611 [Starflower] stacks of 1. And this is just a tip of the iceberg. Throughout the playing I have seen some really weird amounts going up to the few thousands... With the release of WoD, most of the materials that once stacked in 20s now stack in 200s. While I see the need to place auctions in stacks of 5, 10, 20and even 50 even though maximum amount of materials in a stack is 200, I fucking can't see reason of someone placing 611 stacks of 1.

And I am gonna leave it at that and go play for a while until I find something else that pisses me off.