So, I bit the proverbial bullet

[Swiss Mercenary]

And picked the game up for free at my Futureshop. By 'free', I naturally mean, $10 CAD, which is significantly less then the cost of the single month included in the package.

Aside from the usual, and expected changes of talents, spells, and abilities from beta, I have noticed a few things.

1. World PvP. Dead can't really begin to describe it. My rogue's level 29, and so far, the only enemy players I have seen that weren't level ??, was a level 25 BE hunter, when I was 23. The only kind of engagements that seem to be happening, aside from level 70s trying to camp Darkshire, was one raid from SW to the Undercity, and a retalation.

I've heard that apparently, it's still alive on certain servers - has anyone at all noticed that? For reference, my characters are on Ner'Zhul - a high pop PvP server, that's still without queues.

2. Battlegrounds. I can't say I'm speaking from a position of experience here, but they seem to be filled to the brim with 2K hp twinks, with the possible exception of various level 23s and 28s here and there, which are typically fairly easy kills (Something that's not wholly right in itself). I can't say I'm buying the crap about how they "Are looking for the challenge of taking on another twink" :rolleyes:.

Is there anything I can do to my play to 'adapt' to 'counter' that? Or should I just write low-level BGs off?

3. I've got other questions I've yet to forumulate, but these two are the most pressing ones.

[Delc]

1) Low level areas are pretty deserted these days, and have been for a while. Not a lot of new people picking the game up, and those that have been playing forever are all in Outland. People are rolling new alts, but it doesn't take long to blow through the same content the 10th time so they don't stick around long.

2) Same as above. Most people roll the alts and burn through to 70 as fast as possible. The exception being the twinks, and the occasional person who runs a couple games to kill some time. Low level bgs have almost no rewards anyway, so unless you enjoy them you should just write them off imo. The 20-29 bracket is about the worst for the twinks though. Mainly because its super cheap to make one, and the difference between a twink and a non-twink at that level is pretty brutal.

[Xanthix]

I think right now the game is a little top-heavy. Most people are still focusing on the Outlands and max-level stuff, and on PvE, due to the huge amount of content in the expansion and since then. This is not necessarily a bad thing in my book, but I'm sure the lower-level areas are much less traveled as a result. At least you won't have to fight over spawns as much. B)

[Swiss Mercenary]

I think right now the game is a little top-heavy. Most people are still focusing on the Outlands and max-level stuff, and on PvE, due to the huge amount of content in the expansion and since then. This is not necessarily a bad thing in my book, but I'm sure the lower-level areas are much less traveled as a result. At least you won't have to fight over spawns as much. B)

True, and I'd obviously rather not see the kind of overcrowding from beta. However, I think this crosses the line into "Deserted." Westfall only has a few soloers, and three or four people grouping for VC. The harder quests in Darkshore do encourege grouping, and the zone is fairly popular. Duskwood has a healthy population. Redridge, Ashenvale, and Loch Modan, OTOH, are deserted.

In general, unless it's Deadmines, it seems that the only way to find a group for an instance, is to:

Meeet someone doing a quest somewhere that you are on.

Do the quest together.

Suggest that we do an instance run.

Hope that someone on yours, or theirs friends list is on, to get a group of 4 going - finding the fifth is easy at that point.

This is of course, from an unguilded perspective.

[q4m]

Playing on a PvP server you *will* get ganked (i.e. killed by a group or ??) more often than you come across a "fair" fight. However, the "fair" fights can really be a lot of fun. I played for quite some time on a PvP server and it had good moments and bad. Eventually, I transferred off simply because I felt I needed to play a TON just to keep up with the gear required to even survive. I enjoyed it, but I know I'd hate it undergeared compared to the rest of the server.

I'd echo what other have said about low level bgs...stay away unless you just really enjoy them.

[Swiss Mercenary]

And, I rolled a horde on Tichondrius. Something I've noticed were the AH prices for low-level mats.

5s for a Tigerseye gem? 19s for a stack of Light Leather? Why in the world is this guy selling 3 stacks of Linen Cloth with a 5s buyout (Considering the other auctions were selling for 35s, it was trivial to buy it, and resell it, but why would someone post an auction like that?)

I mean, I've heard that the AH prices were different server to server, but I had no idea they were that different. On Ner'Zhul, Light Leather is an easy 99s/stack, while Linen also sells for 99s/stack.

Is there something vastly different in the economy of the server? Did the gold farmers just not get to it? (Which seems an unlikely proposition, as copper is still fiendishly expensive).

For a note, my now level 31 rogue's got roughly 80 gold by now, most of it through AH sales of leather and cloth.

[Tris]

Well some of those materials have radically different limiting factors. Although I can't really explain the gem prices with this. Cloth and leather are based on how many humanoids/animals you can kill per unit time. Node based materials require tracking down all the nodes.

So, it would make sense that cloth is relatively cheap (except for the harder to find wool). Any class with a good AoE can just annihilate large areas of low level humanoids... the same goes for animals. So, farming these should be much easier, and as a result should be much cheaper.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Well some of those materials have radically different limiting factors. Although I can't really explain the gem prices with this. Cloth and leather are based on how many humanoids/animals you can kill per unit time. Node based materials require tracking down all the nodes.

So, it would make sense that cloth is relatively cheap (except for the harder to find wool). Any class with a good AoE can just annihilate large areas of low level humanoids... the same goes for animals. So, farming these should be much easier, and as a result should be much cheaper.

I'm not surprised that it's fairly cheap - I mean, the 'regular' price for it seems to be ~40s/stack. Much less then 80s-100s/stack on Ner'Zhul, but still understandable. What I didn't get, OTOH, was why there were several auctions with a buyout of 5s.

[LavCat]

And, I rolled a horde on Tichondrius. Something I've noticed were the AH prices for low-level mats.

5s for a Tigerseye gem? 19s for a stack of Light Leather? Why in the world is this guy selling 3 stacks of Linen Cloth with a 5s buyout (Considering the other auctions were selling for 35s, it was trivial to buy it, and resell it, but why would someone post an auction like that?)

I mean, I've heard that the AH prices were different server to server, but I had no idea they were that different. On Ner'Zhul, Light Leather is an easy 99s/stack, while Linen also sells for 99s/stack.

Is there something vastly different in the economy of the server? Did the gold farmers just not get to it? (Which seems an unlikely proposition, as copper is still fiendishly expensive).

For a note, my now level 31 rogue's got roughly 80 gold by now, most of it through AH sales of leather and cloth.

I have not noticed a difference in the auction house prices between Tichondrius and Stormrage, but then my Tichondrius characters are all low level and poor, and are not often window shopping purple weapons. And I seem to have stopped leveling my Blood Elf hunter because the Basin friend I was leveling with lost interest in horde, at least for the time being. In my limited opinion, on a PvP server you need an active guild, or at least a group of friends, to quest. Though the excitement of a PvP environment is hard to match on Stormrage. It was great fun to be chased by a ?? alliance hunter from Talon Deep almost to the Crossroads, and to beat a six levels higher shaman who tried to get an easy kill. It was not as fun to fly into Tarren Mill and be killed instantly, her first death, at level 27.

World PvP has been mostly moribund since battlegrounds came out. If I see someone killing a mob I leave them alone. Early in retail Ruv and I were questing on the beach in Darkshore and found a flagged orc on a copper node who should not have been there. We killed him with an arrow to the back as he tried to run away and I still feel rather bad about that. There is still some world PvP on Stormrage for characters less than 70 but not much. When Baguette at about level 63 was getting exalted with the Timbermaw, she was helping a 50 something rogue with the quest for the Chief. A horde party of three were also trying to get the Chief. Baguette used AoE to tag the mobs, and then noticed that the horde were flagged. Being much lower level the rogue was afraid to help, but Baguette got herself three furbolgs and an orc.

I have no experience with low level battlegrounds, but I recently saw a level 19 in IF who had on the battle tabard of the Silverwing. Someone must be doing them!


Edit: Spelling.