New joy in familiar worlds

I haven’t logged into Conan for about a week. Part of this has to do with disastrous patch and connection issues, and part of it has to do with professions and the economy being almost totally broken. Literally broken, in the case of the alchemy issue (if you open your tradeskills book it crashes the game), and figuratively broken in terms of scarcity of gathering materials and how much resources it costs to level a tradeskill.

Earning money is extremely tough in Conan. I pick up all the trash loot that other players leave on mobs, I grind, I try to sell things in the auction house (without much success). And Dravven has something like 56 silver to her name at level 42. She can theoretically ride a horse, but since the normal horse and riding skill costs three gold, it’s not likely to happen any time soon. The swift horse costs 150 gold, which is a ridiculous amount.

We had a recent heated discussion in the guild forums about buying gold, have you ever, is it wrong, etc. I am very much against buying gold because you’re basically buying other player’s sundered accounts and ruined playtime (in relation to fighting bots and farmers in order to do quests). It’s morally wrong. And yet, and yet…I could easily spend £15 and have a horse. It was becoming very tempting.

And so I decided to put Conan aside for a bit.

In Warcraft, I’ve discovered new joy in levelling my baby priest. The Fire Festival has been a boon for her, and she should make 64 before it’s over. I’m trying to balance staying in each area long enough to level a bit, so I can reserve SMV, at least, for questing in post-seventy. I like her so much. Whether or not I’ll like healing, though, is another matter.  :)

Raiding has been boring recently, and we’re back to long delays during raids because of afks and disconnects and (presumably) officer discussions where everyone just sits around. I hate it. I want fast, active runs, I want to keep the momentum up. I don’t want to raid like this, sitting there reading a book with flasks and buffs ticking away, bored out of my mind.

Well, back to work, an ecommerce shop redesign and meetings…and then home to play my priest, as the BT raid tonight has been cancelled due to lack of signups. Does no one wonder why our signups are low? I think it’s sheer boredom, and I very much hope that the officers will try to do something about it, because I love this guild.