For reference I have included some screen shots of the threads at the end of the post.  Given the constraints of twitter I thought I would just respond here and link to it in a tweet to everyone.

Size of Market

Yes given the size of the WoW Playerbase a “One AH to Rule them All” is not really doable given the number of auctions and number of active users would be about the size of eBay on size of scale.   A good first step for all servers would be to make all of the AHs run by a neutral faction like void storage and other newer services.  If we need a lore reason I am sure one could be made up with the increased war efforts all of the previous merchant vessels and shipping lanes have been conscripted into the war effort making it a prime vacuum to be filled by neutral Goblins and the Consortium.  Or even better the Black Prince moves to take over this hole extending the equivalent of the Black Market AH to AHs.

At the initial level the Alliance/Horde/Neutral Auction Houses were combined into one that would at least help the minority faction on servers that are heavily unbalanced.  Yes, there will be market disturbances based on this but Blizzard has shown that they are willing to piss in everyone’s cereal if they think it is for the betterment of the game and this would be IMO another case where they should.  The initial effect is going to be greater deflation on the price of raw materials with a follow through with end products.  However as a large supply propagates through the markets were things were much higher than the other market that they are being combined with over all a new average price will result.

This leads me to the next place IMO Blizzard messed up in MoP.

Market Volatility, Supply & Demand, and the quest for more Purples (BoP, BoA, BoE and the AH)

Lets be honest the in the end the goal of every player is to have fun and feel like they are not just wasting time.  There are many ways to measure this some more popular than others.  One of the most popular methods is to compare iLevel of gear, followed closely by looking good in the gear we have.

One of the things I like to do in all the games I play is make stuff.  Gear, Food, whatever is available to make I will end up with a bunch of crafters.  I found the cloth in Cata and now MoP to be infuriating especially when comparing it to Leather and Metal rare materials.  Because the Cloth is BoP and the others are BoE.  This means that Tailors have to commit to a daily regimen of cloth production with their cooldowns, save it all and then craft the item either for themselves or to sell.  The other crafting professions have the joy of being able to pull resources across many players to quickly create 1 item for themselves, their guild or for profit.

On top of that one of the general resources is also BoP, I have hated BoP crafting material throttling as a gearing cock block since I started playing the game and first encountered them.  I like open markets and free trade, and nonsensical restrictions make my blood boil.

A side effect of this which was really prevelent in Cata before Raiding started to die a slow and painful Death was all of the classes that could gear up with communal resources did and left the poor clothy DPS and Healers behind as they had weeks of cooldowns to use before they could fill the slots that Blacksmiths, Leather workers and others could fill with a few borrowed cooldowns.  Now with all the other casual and crafting alt reputation hell that players must go through there are very little BoE gear on the AH, which means players are not buying and or crafting the gear because the market is so limited.  Then since there is not the gear churn for mains and alts the secondary consumable market is now imploding on itself as there is an over abundance of supply with little demand since alts and raiders are just saying screw it, not worth the time investment.

The faster it is to gear an alt or to switch mains the more robust the market is because gear and consumables are being used and upgraded.

Tag to Faction

This was just a follow-up to the new world bosses being now tag to faction.  This is joyous as I have played GW2 almost exclusively since new years when I decided to give it a go.  It is remarkable how much nicer players are towards one another when they don’t have to compete with your own faction over kill tags.  There is just no description other than glorious, because to be honest in WoW, hell is other players in the area you are.  If they are it means longer quest time and few resources as you compete over everything, with a few rare exceptions.   In GW2 where everything is cooperative it actually makes you happy because that means things will get done faster for you and the other person rather than longer.  You then start to look forward to others joining in and not wishing you could go global pvp flag and kill them.

The previous Post-Mortem dealt with why I was playing a Human Character almost exclusively at the moment and not my normal Alt-o-holic behavior.  This one is going to build a little on what I was complaining about it and expand more into the reward side of the content and the issues problems with the beginning of expansion reward mechanics.

Problem the First: Multi-layered Gating Mechanics

Specifically in this case Justice/Valor Gear Vendors being Reputation Restricted.  Now I realize that a few of the restrictions have been loosened and some of the item levels have been increased after the fact but let’s get down to the basics.  Gating content is acceptable, and needed in some regards we all understand that, however for each gating mechanism there really should be X+1 ways to earn or bypass said Gate.

Problem the Second: Level Cap or Don’t Bother

In previous expansions some of the end-game factions were available to gain rep with before reaching the level cap.  This was useful because if you knew you wanted to get rewards from that faction you could then focus a nice part of your leveling content doing the normal quests for them.  In MoP with the un-rested xp rate acquisition and xp needed to level being so tight there was little wiggle room and flexibility as to which quest hubs you skipped.  Unless you leveled with full rested xp the whole time you were either going to have to go through some or all of the Wilds or deal with the hell that is Dread Wastes prior to being able to fly, again.

Problem the Third: Factions Locked Behind Factions (Worst of Problem the First and the Second)

So this the real problem with the basic design of End Game in MoP if you are not a raider or if you play more than one character regularly.  The amount of time required to push through to 90 and then be hit with a wall that is an even greater time investment just to get sub-par rewards adds insult to the injury.  I would elaborate more but several weeks have passed since when I started this post and now finishing up this part.  In the mean time I have come across several other games that I find much more enjoyable to spend time playing.

Two of them were single player games and one other is a MMO that I am really grooving on the systems as far as crafting, exploration, alt interplay and general leveling.  That MMO is Guild Wars 2, and I am surprised by how much I am enjoying it since I found the first Guild Wars many years ago to be very lacking.

I am ultimately a casual alt-o-holic that likes to craft gear for my army of alts.  I get bored when playing any one character too exclusively for any major length of time.  I have been mostly playing one of my Paladins primarily lately and until the Subscriptions end for a couple of reasons.

1) The character is Human +10% Rep = Win where dailies are the only way to get rep and dailies suck.

2) The dailies in many cases are a major pain in the ass if you do not have at a minimum, the mitigation of a non-tanking plate wearer.  The mobs just hit too damn hard for content that is supposed to be completable solo and when not geared in full 463 blues or even epics.

That is it about why I play that character over the Mage, Priest, Druid, and Warrior that I also have at 90.

So now that the summary is out-of-the-way let’s get into what I really don’t like about MoP, and the following statement sums up pretty much all the current end game content.

It is not worth my time.

Or to elaborate a little.

The amount of effort and time required to get just 1 character ready for LFR and the crafting patterns I would want to use to gear up that and future characters is too great that by the time I would get there with my gaming habits I would not need the rewards.

This second part is pretty much the one problem I have found with every god damn MMO.  For some unexplained reason the ability to craft useful gear for the level your character is at only occurs if you are raiding at end game and you can get a raid drop crafting pattern.  Every other item made is damn near useless or you have better obtained via another method first.

I will end here for now, the next one I may grump about will most likely be travel and the corpse running annoyances.