Like the boogeyman, the pandemic continues to loom over everything. Last year’s con was cancelled and this year’s was quite a bit more subdued. I have to compare to Nintendo Direct, where they are brief and focused on getting as much information out as possible. BlizzCon tried to give that con vibe, but without the people there as a backdrop, it looked more like a weird Twitch stream. Large speeches to empty rooms don’t pack the same punch as a LoreCast or one of any of Warframe’s video updates. So mechanically, this was a weird one.

Also, next to nothing on Kotick’s push for mobile games. Smart, since this is not the right audience for it.

Top it off that these devs are working in a pandemic too, making any progress an achievement in itself. D2 is being remade (we knew this). D4 has a rogue (the game looks more like PoE every time I see it), nothing on Overwatch of note, HotS was absent, Hearthstone appears to be a balance sweep, and WoW, well.

Any X.1 patch will naturally bring about large balance changes, few system changes, and some flavour on content. This is when the product should just work. Of the expected items:

• Flying: pretty much as expected, within a single zone. Will still need a FP and funnel through Oribo (of which, only 1 per zone actually links).
• Anima: seems the volume of it is intended. I’m inferring from the ‘there are no plans for extra customization’ that what we had in 9.0 is pretty much all that we’ll ever see in terms of things that cost anima.
• Covenants: they are merging for a forward base of attack in the Maw. While expected, the timing is much faster. Curious if the covenant restrictions will remain, or a new joint faction will be created.
• The Maw: Anyone will be able to mount, and there’s a new subzone coming into play. I dislike the Maw in almost every possible way, but am thankful that only 1 character needs to gain rep here to unlock the account-level boosts. Kinda defeats the purpose for Twisting Corridors though.
• Torghast: new wings… which I’m curious as to what purpose that brings. More floors and anima powers too. The only reason for Torghast today is Soul Ash, which few people actually need now. I didn’t see any news for new pets/cosmetics.
• New raid: This one is in Torghast, which automatically makes me think about anima / RNG in a raid. Curious.
• Mega-dungeon: This does sound quite interesting, similar to Return to Kara / Mechagon. Wonder what will be in it to have it compare to the M+ dungeons.
• Story: Right. Anduin being possessed was expected. The Archon getting stabbed (and surviving) was cathartic. Sylvanas having doubts, not so much. We’re all expecting a redemption arc here, but if there was ever a character in WoW that didn’t deserve one it’s her. We also know there are 4 keys within the 4 leaders to free the Jailer (and it looks like he has 3 now). So I guess this puts a giant target on the Winter Queen.

Of the unexpected/surprises… I think it has more to do with the fact that this seemed like 9.2 content and not 9.1. Means that the fight against the Jailer should be in 9.2, and that there’s a new setup for an even bigger baddie in 9.3? Dunno…

It’s certainly more content than I was expecting given the real world around us. Players will be able to reach Renown 40 on March 5th, and we know there’s a 9.05 coming too. Speculating, 9.1 won’t be around until May.

Most people are under some sort of weird concept that the price of an item is somehow regulated. In some cases that is true, but in the wide majority the market itself defines the price. The price of a car is determined by the price of other cars. Something is only a deal if you are aware of the true market value.

As a consumer the most powerful weapon you have is knowledge. This is also the inverse for a seller, you want to have more information than your client in order to maximize profit. Now in the real world, few people actually understand this model – we are all consumers. (The stock market as a whole takes advantage of this.)

In online games with auction houses, we can all be sellers and consumers. And information is the true weapon in that battle.

I mentioned in the previous post about a Cloth shuffle. Lightless Silk and Shrouded Cloth are traded on the AH, made into bracers, disenchanted, and the shard/dust is sold again on the AH for a profit. At “standard” market rates, you make ~25g per craft, which is decent.

But what if I don’t want standard rates? I change the market value.

Regular rate for Shrouded Cloth is 1.7g. If I can cut that down to 1g, I make an extra 7g per bracer, or a 33% increase in profit. How? I post a single item at 1g. If it’s a single item, bots won’t pick it up and 95% of player will try to undercut me. If I keep on the AH and simply buy everything that shows up at 1g (keeping my 1 item on sale), I can make a killing. I did this the other day for 5 minutes and picked up 2000 cloth at a much better rate.

Lightless Silk goes for 22g. I can cut that to 15g and turn my bracer profit up to 41g. I could go lower, but I need to stay within the default TSM4 value (25% of market rates). That means a potential floor of 50s for the Cloth 5.5g for the Silk and a per profit take of 66g.

This only allows me to change value down. To change the value as an increase, I need to buyout everything. This is ok in low volume markets, but in the Cloth/Dust market, that means spending 100k+ to create a new value. Instead I simply need to wait until the market corrects itself based on time of day. Late Saturday or early Sunday gets the most bang.

Buy low and sell high…certainly helps when you can decide what is considered low.

Spoilers, obviously.

I’ve completed the full campaigns for all covenants now, and have some specific and general thoughts on them. At a higher level, these campaigns are a close 2nd to Legion’s class hall storylines. I’m quite hopeful as the expansion continues there’s more to this, and that would give players some reason to bother with increasing renown.

A particular note is that of all the covenants, ONLY Kyrian requires you to do any group content (a normal dungeon run). Every other one can be done solo.

First the mechanics of the campaigns. You need specific renown levels, and the catchup mechanics + Threads of Fate leveling mean you can reach lvl 22 in 2 weeks. Completing all the quests gives you a full set of gear (no jewellery or trinkets) and an LFR weapon. You’ll be tasked with completing a wide range of quests that bring you across the various zones, and give you a concept as to what’s going on in the other covenants. Each individual set of quests is straightforward enough to complete, with the Night Fae going into non-SL zones for some busy work steps.

In terms of ranking of personal enjoyment of the campaings, I would go Necrolord, Venthyr, Night Fae, Bloodsail Buccaneers, Kyrian.

Necrolord

This storyline focuses on the power stolen from the Primus, the dirty deal made with the Jailers and the cleanup of traitors within Maldraxxus. You build power over time, steal a Ziggurat, and then end with a big fight against Kel’thuzad. It does a great job of explaining why the faction exists, the various sub roles, and who’s who in the zoo. It ties in very neatly to the Venthyr campaign at the end, and does a superb job of providing ‘shades of grey’ to Kyrian. Each step builds on ther former and is sufficiently different. By the end you gain a customizable costume for a KoS zone in Maldraxxus, allowing for safe harvesting. It ties in to the WoW storyline all the way back to W3.

The abomination crafting mini-game is really underused and not terribly enjoyable.

Venthyr

This storyline concentrates on building a resistance coalition of the various sub factions to regain control of the zone, through the collection of medallions. You close out with Kael’thas Sunstrider’s redemption arc, which never really comes to closure. It explores the entire zone and the principles behind cool looking vampires. You eventually come to terms that this faction is what everyone assumed Kyrian would be – the ability for evil characters to find redemption by accepting their sins. The final bit goes into Maldraxxus (time-wise same as Necrolord) to battle Kel’thuzad. This storyline only loses points for lack of orginality, as the middle part is just the same thing for 3 sub-factions.

I tried the dinner party mini game once and never went back. It just takes too long to see any progress, feeling more like a dating sim that takes days to see random results.

Night Fae

This is a really weird faction that I simply do not understand. Every other faction the souls land, go through a trial of sorts, and then just exist. Night Fae, you enter as a seed and with Anima are reborn… or not if the Winter Queen deems your energy is best used elsewhere. The Arbiter has nothing on this lady. The story itself is bound to the Drust somehow invading the zone, and Bwonsamdi’s mentor causing havoc. That particular storyline is really confusing and not interesting. The cool bit is the laying of the conditions to cure Tyrande of the Night Warrior status. The final battle clears out all the bad guys and ends on a sort of cliffhanger that to cure Tyrande, the Night Warrior will need to be spread across multiple characters.

The garden tending process is weird and simple. Reminds me more of the garden in MoP I guess.

Kyrian

This faction is convinced that your memories prevent your true self to be good. At nearly every point, you’re fighting against the concept of free will or the fact that you are the sum of your experiences. This is explored through the Mawsworn (Lysonia) trying to break the process of Kyrian, and using Uther as a pawn to accomplish the goals. Uther turns face at the end, for no real good reason that I could figure, and by the end the order of Bastion is restored. At no point do the Kyrian accept that their methods are flawed, and I cannot see any purpose to the Kyrian in the larger scale of the afterlife – aside from guiding the dead to the Arbiter. They are mindless husks, and by the end of the campaign you really are rooting for the Jailer. It has no tie ins to the Night Fae, next to none with Maldraxxus, and only a few bits with the Venthyr.

These guys have the coolest mini-game, which is a sort of Brawler’s guild in itself. The downside here is the tokens required to take part are hard to find, and the anima costs to open all options are insane. It’s the best content that no one is playing.

Overall

In all honesty, the campaigns themselves are really quite good, I’d argue even better than the main questline from 50-60. I may not like Bastion as a faction, but it’s consistent and mostly character driven rather than plot. The storylines in one faction don’t conflict with another, and in the case of the Necrolord/Venthyr, they actually merge for a time. This isn’t Shakespeare. Blizz continues to use the same techniques for creating interesting characters – primarily by putting them through insane trauma. There are other methods to get a monomyth to deliver.

I realize people don’t play online games only for the story, but it’s fair to say that in a themepark MMO, the story is foundational to the larger enjoyment. Given the ‘blank page’ of Shadowlands lore, Blizz has done a really good job here.

The interesting bit about conventions is that most of them today have nothing to do with celebrating the culture, and more about pushing stuff into consumers hands. ComicCon is a solid example. There are certainly exceptions, where there’s this weird balance at hand. PAX fits in this weird space between geek culture and corporate involvement. EvE has it’s own convention with next to no corporate, same with Warframe.

BlizzCon was originally launched as a celebration of all things Blizz (90% WoW culture) and over the years has morphed into a sort of hype machine. Still quite focused on the gamers, and at a price point where there’s a large swath of more casual players that won’t bother. The Diablo Immortal announcement was not the first faux pas, but certainly the most notable. Are there mobile gamers out there? For sure! Are they at BlizzCon? Nope. Where the people at BlizzCon expecting some PC Diablo news? Yup. Ensuing “Do you not own phones?” comments came out and the rest is written down.

This year is a weird one. There’s no scarcity to tickets, and the whole thing is being streamed for free. The potential audience is now in the millions. Sure this is a deal for everyone that used to pay, and Blizz is certainly still eating a few dimes to get it through. And yet Kotick ain’t no fool, and he’s never missed an opportunity to make a buck. And he is smelling blood in the water something fierce now.

What impact does that have? It means that the largest driving factor for any game is going to be daily average users (DAU). This will certainly manifest through an any device, any time, any game model where you are incentivized to always be p(l)aying. It means multiple mobile game launches that interact with their PC environments. I am still amazed that we don’t have a WoW Pet Battles mobile app.

And yet, Bobby is Bobby, and he will copy every bad habit out there (hence owning King) to make a buck. These will certainly have the worst aspects of F2P mobile games as an underlying feature – with a solid gameplay on top. They will not be marketed at the existing client base, but at the folks on the edge. The existing clients are ALREADY paying, and the odds of nickel and dimming them are pretty low.

WoW

If I was to look specifically at WoW it seems the larger items on hand would include

• TBC launch date for Classic. This seems easy, but recall this is when flight was added to the game and the “world building” part really went on a different tangent.
• Details on patch 9.05 which currently seems like the balance patch launch should have brought had the devs enough time to do their work in the pandemic.
• An overview of 9.1 in which we see the external factors cause trouble (my money is on Tyrande) and hopefully some Maw tweaks. Maybe solve the whole Primus/Runekeeper dilema.
• A re-jiggering of Torghast rewards. More floors seem the simple choice, but save points in Twisting Corridors would be nice. From my alt leveling experience recently, there are very few people who bother with this place now.
• New legendary levels, which would give some purpose to excess Ash. I’d expect the ability to equip a 2nd legendary to come along as well.
• MASSIVE tweaking of the anima/cosmetic reward structure in each covenant. The 1K weekly anima quest is currently the only reason to even bother with this system.

Tin Foil here for a last bit. Bastion is the weirdest of all covenants, as it essentially memory wipes you to get you down to base. Sylvanas is foundationally a good person, and under insane levels of trauma has reached insane levels of evil. Clearly the devs want her to have a redeeeming arc, and I’m betting dollars to donuts she gets converted through the same mechanics as Bastion to get her back to her original state.

So yeah, mechanics of BlizzCon are about pumping more money out of the consumer’s pocket, and WoW is going to focus on balancing (rather than rebuilding in 8.1).

In my current mini quest to update my knowledge of the WoW Auction House (and speed up time to get a token), I’ve tried to fit things into one of two buckets. Sales where the margins are high, and sales where the volume is high.

As with all simplifications, the devil is in the details. High margins are useless if the items only sell once a month, and high volume is painful if the gains per item are too small. So I’m looking for ‘perfect’ items with a minimum gold per sale AND a decent sale rate. I am clearly not the only person doing this, so that specific market is already quite aggressive.

So let’s cover the various markets.

Flipping

This is all but impossible to do without TSM (or similar). You need a list to work from, and then you need to filter that list to only look at items with a certain value (I put mine at 1.5k), and that can actually sell (TSM rate 0.05 is my cut off). I focus on transmog, but pets can also be good. I run a scan for 10 minutes every 3 days, pick up the deals that will turn a 1k profit, and then just keep them posted until they sell.

Harvesting

Skinning, Herbalism, Fishing… all of them turn some profit. Herbalism is by far the easiest (hence the bots) but you need to be moving to find things and follow a decent path. Skinning requires an AE tank, so either a Monk or a Druid, with decent gear to sustain massive pulls. Not really made for an alt, yet more profitable than herbalism. Fishing… well I’m glad you can make money with fishing but it should not be the goal.

Leatherworking

The money here is in transmog. All the other mats are going to legendary gear and the margins there are too thin. Pandaria has Magnificence of Leather (dont use Scales, same effect) on a daily cooldown to get a recipe that turns a decent (1-5k) profit.

Tailoring

I’d like to say that Tailoring has transmog, but not so much. Bags are not profitable. What it can do is support a cloth shuffle. Cloth –> blue tailor items –> disenchant –> shard. This can be profitable since cloth drops for everyone, you don’t need a profession.

Blacksmithing

There’s mount equipment that can turn a profit, but that’s a few expansions back now and base mats may be a challenge. I would not recommend this for making gold in SL.

Alchemy

This is a bread and butter profession with crazy volumes. There is some major volatility, and server reset days often have massive spikes. I craft anything with a 25% margin on crafting, which is 3-5 pots depending on the day. The DPS boost pot shot up by 100g this week, and I ended up clearing something like 10k profit on that in a day.

Enchanting

There are two paths here, shuffling and crafting. Shuffling is a math exercise, extremely dependent on the value of base mats. Some factions provide rebates on necessary crafting materials (like flux) that can save you 25g per craft.

Crafting is more complex. Enchants sell if people swap gear often, which was certainly applicable in the loot pinata of BfA. There’s money to be made here, but it requires the highest core investment of all the professions.

Jewelcrafting

Honestly, you should only have this to prospect and then flip. There are more gem slots in gear now, but the profit margins here aren’t much.

Inscription

This market is still amazingly profitable, but the sale rates are much lower than others. The downside is that the crafting cost of some are over 1k.

Farming Rares

Right, this deserves some comment. There are 4-5 locations in SL that are prime farm locations, with drop rates that are simply insane due to super fast spawn times. Boomkins dominate this space. It’s heavy on RNG, but 10k/h is a reasonable expectation if you’re just vendoring. BoE drops can get you 100k+ though.

Callings

This is 2K per day, for about 10 minutes of work. Best to save up 3 days, as often callings overlap. You shouldn’t really bother with the AH if you can’t make similar amounts in similar timeframes.

Is it Worth It?

Unless you really like spreadsheets, honestly I would avoid this entirely. The game is already ultra generous in gold drops, and there are no purchases so far out of reach to bankrupt anyone. In terms of gold/real hour, you figure 1 token = $15. 1 token is around 120k gold. So for near minimum wage at 1 hour you can pay for a token.

Color me surprised. Blizz is brining back Valor points.

Recall Valor tokens is a system that every other MMO has, and that Blizz has spent 10 years trying to avoid with more RNG (see the advent of coins way back in MoP) to provide ‘bad luck protection’. Tokens provide a focused bad luck protection system, but really made no sense once ‘-forging’ took place. While there’s no RNG in the rolls on the gear, the nature of M+ means that the maximum level of an item will depend on an achievement related to M+ runs. That system is sound, and since it’s variable based, it can be tweaked with a hotfix if need be. Plus, it can scale as more dungeons are released (???) and the general ilvl of the game goes up.

I am really trying to avoid being a cynic here. Blizz’s pattern for system design has been rough to say the least these past years. Few of them ever seem to survive a content patch, let alone an expansion. The mechanics of M+ and Raids have been relatively stable, but those are not power/reward based systems. I cannot think of the last time that Blizz actually deployed something that worked out the gate – there’s always a massive balance change downstream (if not outright removal).

That said, conceptually this design appears to be as complex as a lay-up. One where everyone expects this to be easy, and if you mess up, that comes with ridicule. Blizz is not inventing something new here. They’ve done this before, and there are dozens of WORKING models on which to refer. A roundabout way of saying that I have hopes this works.

Covenant Abilities

9.05 will also come with Covenant ability balancing. Size is relevant. It’s hard to properly articulate what large patch notes mean as a development team. These aren’t flat passes like we’ve seen of ‘all Rogue damage is increased 5%’. These are clearly thought out and have been on the lines for some time. It will impact simulations, certainly. But I doubt this would be enough to actually have people change covenants as mechanically few changes are taking place. Single target skills are staying single target. Kyrian is still going to own tanking, Night Fae on AE, and Venthyr for single target.

Well, Fleshcraft is the outlier. The most useless skill in the game now has a larger damage shield and reduces damage taken by 30% while channelling. Changes like these are somewhat worrysome, as any tank worth their salt is not going to take 2 GCD to stand somewhere and facetank. Maybe as a prep to a large pull in M+ with a 40% shield?

Legendary Abilities

There are no details on the tuning pass, so this is just assumptions here. Multiple specs have a clear best-in-slot legendary. A few have options, but only in regards to some weird variables. BM Hunters are a good example, the trap legendary is the best one by far but it’s a horribly complex/painful one to use, so quite a few folks opted for the passive legendary instead. Curious as to if this is a mechanical pass or just balance. Hope it’s both!

Swapping legendaries is a weird process, given the method of which you acquire Soul Ash. I’d expect a catch up mechanic to accompany any tuning phase.