First a map of Stormwind showing me in the shop – the cool place to be.

And another shot of just outside the shop:

This is the place where you will find three Ethereals (think Mana Tombs).  On the left is the reforging service – the one that used to be done by an Elf in the Enchanter Trainer area.

In the middle is the new Void Storage guy – who wants to relieve you of a *lot* of money.  First you need to establish your bona fides with him by crossing his palm with 100G.  For this he explains that you can put your stuff in the top box, for the price of 25G per item.  You can then get them into storage – and if you wish to withdraw them, then you take them from the store and  put them in the outbox.  He will *not* accept items that are unique equip – so a lot of seasonal outfits will not fit in there.  He will not accept items that need darning, or have dents in, so, off you go and repair them…  He will also not accept anything that is not soulbound.  And he will strip the items of any reforging, enchants or gems.

Finally, there is the transmog vendor – who will make your outfit look different – you can only swap like for like though.  So a plate wearer cannot look as if they are wearing cloth – and a mace cannot be made to look like a sword.  Either drag your item to the slot on the armour model, or right click on it, and pay up…

Hope this helps, have a nice day.

Also, the hilarious Charge of the Light Brigade Raid directions…. 

Because I miss them – whatever the thoughts might be about various political stances, those bits of humour could not fail to tickle

Up until now, we have had a limit of 50 toons per account, with ten per server.

Until reasonably recently, you could not have horde toon and alliance toons on the same server, same account.

comments that perhaps they will life the restriction on the number of toons per account per server – meaning that potentially, you could have 50 characters slots…

Now *that* sounds appealing. Because at the moment, I have 9 alliance toons at 85, and one at 81 – and one at 20 something who I think I shall delete to make space…. I have 9 horde toons, one at 85, one at 82, and the rest at low levels (this second account is a bit new, so that’s why I have not so many on there. And where do I put the monk?

In the past, I have tried different realms – but somehow it has never been easy to get started there – one of the practical difficulties has been that all the heirlooms are effectively bound to one server, so you have to pay money to transfer a mule across bearing all the heirlooms you think you might need. The other is that, for some reason, I feel more connected to the home server – it seems strange, but I have the feeling that one of my horde toons might meet my alliance toons – because it is the same Stormwind, the same Orgrimmar… I don’t actually play both accounts simultaneously, because I don’t think my computer could cope with it – although I do know of some who do – making levelling characters even more of a breeze than it already is, by tugging them along behind you in dungeons, and making light work of group quests.

Sometimes I just get pleasure out of waving at people I sort of know from my new horde guilds when I am on my ally characters – in a neutral place like Dalaran. It’s completely the inverse of picking on people you actually know and being in disguise so they don’t know it, and really enjoying it (thinking of a The Guild episode here) – although sometimes I think that might have its attractions…

Will it mean I need my second account? hmm – I have not tried playing cross-faction AH games, nor whether I can trade from account A to account B – which perhaps might be something to think about… and now I have actually paid for a second set of game licences, it is only the monthly payment which is the saving… Although there would be the cost of transferring them all from account B back to account A if I did want to close account B…

This year’s buggyiness surrounds the bags that drop. Certainly tonight (this morning) the pumpkin-bags have to be opened before you leave the dungeon. Or they disappear entirely from your inventory when you leave.

Some people report losing the items from the bags themselves, and money. I’ve certainly had a ring which I won on a roll – and that stayed.

Serves me right for clicking “leave party” so soon after the guy died

Some time ago, when on holiday in Whitby, I was talking about how enjoyable Gnomercy was – how we had a lot of fun in dungeons, and how I was learning to tank, and it was probably the most fun I was getting in WoW actually – just having a good time. And I proposed (to the other folk in the hot tub at the time, that is) that we have a horde side guild on Earthen Ring and call it Haemogoblin – and have an all-goblin levelling group. In the heady, steamy holiday hot-tub atmosphere, it seemed like a fantastic plan.

Back from holiday, there were Firelands dailies to be done until my brains were coming out of my ears – and for fun there was Gnomercy.

The gnomes are now 75 – and the keen beans have already levelled their professions to max cata level. And there will shortly be a day when they reach 85… so I proposed a horde-side goblin-centred guild. And we made one. And we have started levelling our gnomes to 15.

And some of us are just that keen that we have put a couple of alts in there as well.

This goblin guild coincides with the publication of the latest Terry Pratchett novel – Snuff (which is a really good read, btw) and for those who know Pratchett, the guild ranks are based on the Wee Free Men – our GM is the Kelda. There are pictsies, bigjobs and Carrots. Carrots are the taller folk – and also the lowest ranking – being higher up.

And Anklebijter is now in her mid 60s, tanking a bit.

And Ellandriel the mage (for stay classy) is 85.

And Tesine the UD warlock is 73.

So that’s 8 at 85, 3 at over 70… yes, I wanted that second account – I now have more than 10 alliance toons on one server…

I have never played a warrior before, and my experiments with tanking have been somewhat limited. Anklebijter (the team is all-gnome) is now in her 40s – as such, the dungeons have become more complex – and my skills and the rest of our team’s have also increased. I think things are going very fast, and I am slightly worried that I am not learning enough – I am blindly mashing buttons and hoping my taunt is off CD – our mage at the back seems to have a bit of an aggro-magnet quality….

Therefore recruitment takes place.

But after a while, it is discovered that recruitment has brought a sufficient number of players to the guild, all with the hopes of being part of the group of 10 – and yet there are only 10 spaces.  So we need to make sure that some people are happy to sit out.  And that no matter how many geared and skilled toons an individual has, they, as a player, do not get significantly more playtime than the rest of the team.

There is also the slightly tactically difficult position of wanting enough players who are more skilled than others to be in the group of 10 – in order to give the best chances of success, as balanced against getting all the players who are skilled (but possibly undergeared) to be in the raiding group so that as wide a group of players as possible is equipped to play in raids, in the event that the primary players are not.

So, benching the ones who need to take their turn so they do not hog the action and/or gear, no matter on what raiding alt, and benching the ones who are not good enough.  And there is the rub – why are they not good enough? Why is not all for the best in the best of all possible worlds?  Why is it that sometimes you have a fantastic raid makeup and others where you just want to rip the group to bits out of frustration….  I reckon there are a few distinct types that end up in a raid – and that it would be great if we admitted that we have all been one or other of these types (possibly not all, but even that is possible) and that none is generally wanted in a cohesive group:

The noob

There is a type that is not good enough because they lack experience at play, or play in the role.  This is a group that can improve, if given advice and encouragement, and possible some tips on how to hone their playstyle.

The runt

There is a type that is not good enough because they are undergeared – this is somewhat harder to judge – sometimes gear makes a lot of difference in performance, sometimes it is key to performance, and sometimes it seems that some can squeeze enormous results out of very little, depending on the class.

The Rebel

There is a type that is not good enough because they annoy, because they say the wrong thing at the wrong time, because they ruffle feathers and generally get up people’s noses – so that no matter how well they perform, the moment they do not excel, they are not good enough, because we can’t wait to point out where they got it wrong, because they have been such a thorn in the side of manglement.

The diva

There is a type that is so prominent that it is like a boil on the nose – something that catches your eye and irritates whenever you see it, and yet, do not underperform, in fact may overperform – but who somehow irritate, and who seem to upset the balance of the group – so that playing in a guild run is either manic or morose, depending on the mood of the diva concerned.

These are all types that you find in a raid, and somehow must accept them all, or refuse to embrace diversity – because no matter how much each tends to annoy, they are all part of the same spectrum – just at different points.  To refuse to allow them to play is to limit the range of experience that your guild has.  But the interesting part is to make sure that you don’t get all of them at once – that you move some to the easier content – the farm bosses, which will become far more difficult with some of the above present, and thus more of a challenge and less routine, but consequently, refreshingly difficult for those who know the ropes and could sleepwalk it…  And bench your more able players for this – reserving them for more complex fights, whether those able players are divas or rebels.  And biting your tongue again and again and again…

None of us wants to be identified with any of the four sterotypes above, and few would hope to be any of them – but we all have been, or will be at some time.  And each of us longs to be the reliable, yet cool raider who just gets on with the job – and considers ourselves to be so…

The busking, reliable one….

All images copyright Alex Williams from the babybarista website, created by Tim Kevan