Are Daily Quests a Good Thing?

Blizzard are quite obviously pushing Daily Quests into the game of World of Warcraft. With Patch 2.4 and the introduction of sunwell isle there were 36 new quests, although some were 'continuation quests' once a phase had been completed. (See Here for the Full Shattered Sun Offensive Patch 2.4 Daily Quests)

Now despite the occasional daily quest being fun (I love the bombing run dailys) suddenly people realised you could make a lot of gold very quickly by doing daily quests. All of a sudden the influx of people doing daily quests destroyed raid groups, set to motion people logging on for 4 hours and doing nothing but the same quests over and over, and eventually saw a lot of people quit because what they were doing was boring and held no challenge.

My view on dailies is that while they are a good idea their implementation makes them too powerful. The fact is that these should be a supplement to the game, instead because they reward so well they are infact BECOMING the game. In my personal opinion the daily quest rewards should be significantly dropped so people can play the game once more.

I like to raid, I can see why people PVP, Hell I even agree that arena Epics aren't welfare (Though the ones bought with honour and tokens most definitely ARE welfare epics!) Daily quests have turned world of warcraft away from a game aimed at focusing on being the best and instead have shot it right into the realm of boring repetitive questing.

Begging for Gold

Gold beggars are prevailant in Stormwind and Ironforge nowdays. It seems that when I stand in these cities I am pestered almost continuously by low level beggars crying for a few gold. Despite my suggestions that they go out and kill things they still seem to find it necessary to keep whispering me and opening trade windows.

And so as I told a rather annoying gold beggar to 'Shoveth hys heade where thee sun shineth rarely' I began to thnik about why gold beggars exist.

The most obvious kind of beggar is the 'noob' beggar, new to the game and uncertain as to what they are doing. These guys sometimes act positively to good advice.

The Alt is the worst kind, this may be a lvl 10-12 character that has been dressed down to look more pitiful. These guys can be found in lvl 2-3 grey items claiming they are new to the game. My best solution here is to chase them around shouting scam until they log off.

The final kind is the gold seller. These gold beggars tend to have poorly formed English and tend to be more persistant than others. For these guys it is best to open a trade window and leave several thousand gold in it, then go AFK. It is quite humorous to look back through the chat log and see for just how long the beggar sat there asking you to press the trade button.

So why do these people do it?

Easy, it's profitable.

Despite how most people mock and derise the gold beggars many others still pass over a bit of money here and there regardless. This might be because they have fallen for a story (Pls I just need 2 gold for spells!) or maybe they are just feeling charitable. The fact of the matter is that, like the gold spammers ingame, they do it because it works.

So please, everyone join me in not giving gold to beggars in WoW, and maybe, just maybe, the cities will become just a little less annoying.

World of Warcraft Levelling Guides

Levelling in WoW can be a dreary, mind numbingly boring task, for some of us it takes weeks, others it can take months. There are a lot of guides out there, some are just ebooks where as there are others out there which are inbuilt into the game as an addon, these include Teaam iDemise's Guide, Elite WoW Guide and the Ultimate WoW Guide. All of these can get you from level one to seventy in less than a week of play time.

The question many ask though is should these be used?

The truth of the matter is that these guides, while effective make you miss out on a lot of the ingame content and background. Should WoW players use these levelling guides when it makes them miss out a lot of the intricate parts of the game. Ontop of that speeding through the content can leave a player a little lack lustre in skill.

Personally I have never used a levelling guide however I have been sent Review copies of them and I can safely say their quality is excellent, with fantastic way point, quest and killing information built into the game to ensuer you level at the fastest possible speed in WoW.

Guild Sponsorship in WoW

Now it is well known that some guilds, the larger ones have been sponsored by some big names in world of warcraft. But what about the smaller guilds?

Well as advertising ingame in WoW becomes more and more dificult while also becoming less and less profitable it was only a matter of time till the gold spammers tried something new. It seems hat time has arrived. Many guilds have complained that they have been inundated with gold sellers offering to host their guild site or cover all their oporational real life costs, donate several thousand gold ot their guild bank or similar all for a small advert on their guild website. This is no miniscule offer for many guilds who have to dredge up several hundred pounds a year to operate.

Needless to say there has been outrage from a huge amount of guilds around this, but at the same time quite a few guild websites are slowly putting into play an odd gold selling advert here and there.


Now from a moral standpoint I am against the gold sellers, more for how annoying they are in game than anything else. I can see why some people would buy gold, after all they cant play WoW much, they dont have time to grind etc, Hell I have the same problem a lot of the time. I can also see the point of view of those saying they have spent ages grinding gold just to have other people buy it for fifty quid.

To them I say hell, you try working two jobs, keeping a girlfriend, your mates and some semblance of a family together and then talk to me about grinding time.

I havn't bought gold, I dont plan to but I do sympathise. I also personally like the fact that these guys are putting something into the WoW community, low key website adverts are much more to my taste than annoying gold spam messages in trade every two seconds (Please anyone who DOES buy gold boycott mmo-inn)

So if my guild gets offered this I am sorely tempted to take it, hell our guild costs are around £220 a year, pretty high I think you'll agree!

End Game Healing Maces - Which is the Best?

Today I will be taking a look at two of the best current end game healing maces, namely Archon's Gavel and the Crystal Spire of Karabor. Both of these weapons have amazing stats, but are focused in different areas of healing.

The Crystal Spire of Karabor has an insane healing ability, addint between 180 to 220+ healing to your spells if your terget is below 50% health. However many more healers are swinging towards the new Sunwell Platau Raid in patch 2.4 to pick up Archin's Gavel. While it doesnt have the burst of healing below 50% it does have much higher standard + healing, great for keeping a raid topped up, as well as having a good amount 11 Mp5 anda socket for whatever you may desire.

The choice is a difficult one for Priest and Paladins, although Druids would nearly always go for Archon's Gavel. The choice mainly rests on how you play, main tank healers could find the + healing below 50% an invaluable bonus when the tank is taking heavy damage, likewise raid healers who rarely see below 50% health may find the mana regen and constant plus healing of Archons Gavel a great boost to their raid healing skill. If your groups are hardly seeing below 50% health, then The Crystal Spire of Karabor is infact only a minor upgrade over maces like the Light's Justice from Karazhan, especially for Holy Priests where spirit is such a bonus.

So which would you choose?

Attunement, Should it be Removed?

Attunement is required for many raid instances to enter the portal. In most cases it entails a quest chain following certain bosses, completing certain instances but in all cases making sure you are geared and ready for upcoming instance.

Several months ago Blizzard removed SSC and TK attunement and in patch 2.4 they are removing Karazhan attunement. This has caused an uproar from a lot of people, but there is some reasoning behind it in my eyes.

Attunement is incredibly good at keeping out the poor players from instances. This removes a lot of guild drama, failed runs and all in all people leaving the game.

On the other hand however, many poor players end up getting boosted through the instances by better players, usually in the guild. This means that the once relevant (Especially Kara) attunement becomes an annoyance, especially to guilds having to run lower standard players through the attunement process.

Do you think Attunement to lower level raid instances is still required?

The WoW Gold Buying Argument

Buying gold in World of Warcraft has been condemmed by most people since it first started. However the fact that it remains a booming multi-million pound business suggests that not everyone is arguing against it.

Buying gold for real life cash is a subject that is of great annoyance to those who spend huge amounts of time grinding cash so they can get the best ingame objects. Why, when they go to so much effort, can someone else just jump in and buy things with no actual effort.

The people who have admitted to buying gold tend to form around the reasoning that since they spend a large portion of their time working, why shouldn't they use some of their cash to progress themselves in the game, since they could not at work.

Others say that time shouldn't be the only resource brought into question, on both sides of the argument.

Skill is a massive factor of the argument and it is used by both sides.

Those against gold buying say that buying gold boosts a player through the game and prevents them gaining any skill.

The two main counters to this are

a) Have you never sent gold to an alt to help it level up?

b) If you dont have much free time it is hard to raid and farm for gold for mates and repair bills. buying gold allows people to continue raiding and definately does not suggest the player is any less skillful.

All these arguments have run back and forth across the forums of WoW. In my personal opinion I think gold buying is wrong. It goes against the game mechanics and is unfair on those who have worked hard to progress. I do however see why people do buy gold, so I do not condemn it.

Do you think gold buying in WoW is right or wrong?

Welfare Epics

As my first post in World of Warcraft discussion I thought I would hit on one of WoW's most debated topics.

First off, the term welfare epics is often used to describe gear that is earned easily or with no real effort. For the main part this is referring to raid equivalent epics which can be obtained by sitting in a battleground and doing nothing but run in circles.

Now let me say, my personal view on this is against the 'Welfare Epic system' People used to raid to the endgame so they had the best armour, so they could be 'better' than others. I never reached this level, I have not hit BT, but yet I still want to have these things to aim for. Now however a person who will very soon (In patch 2.4) will be able to buy these epics by doing nothing will be able to beat most players who have been raiding for months. (Due to resilience, a topic I will go to another time)

Now the arena itself is more understandable, It does take effort to get arena PvP, and it does take time. Though I would point out that the massive cost of mats and regents required for raiding is massive compared to that for PvP.

My main beef is, and always will be, with Arena gear being available to buy for something that requires little skill (Battlegrounds) and can even be obtained by doing nothing.

The counter argument is that Battlegrounds do take time and effort, that many people do not have time to raid or get the best armour and so forth.

I instantly dismiss the first two because

a) A weekend in battlegrounds can now get you several pieces of season 2 armour. (Something that would take months of raiding or arena)

b) While battlegrounds are better if you put effort into it, they do not necessarily require it. Battlegrounds are currently ruined because of the number of AFKers affecting them.

For the last argument, raiding does not necessarily take up that much time, if you are only playing one or two evenings a week then there are many guilds who would accept you as a casual raider. I personally only have time to raid once or twice a week at the moment, and yet I am still gearing up consistently. They people who say they have no time for raiding either do not understand the concepts behind it or have only looked at the application requirements of hardcore guilds.

And of course the ease of obtaining these epics has had server wide repercussions. Warriors and Druids all turned PvP spec, leaving nearly every server with a massive shortage of tanks, especially when all paladins turned Holy. Anyone who takes even the briefest look at raiding and instancing in WoW can tell it is broken, PvE is a dieing breed of people who play to progress now, not to be the best.

Does anyone disagree with this, or think they can prove me wrong?