daily-quests
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World of Warcraft players will earn experience points in PvP
We almost missed this major revelation on our sister site WoW Insider -- we might not have caught it if Eurogamer hadn't. Deep within WoW Insider's excellent liveblog of the World of Warcraft PvP panel at Blizzcon, you'll find that Blizzard reps let slip that players will soon be able to earn experience points in addition to honor in PvP.That's already possible in WoW's new competitor Warhammer Online, in which it is essentially just as viable to level up to the cap in PvP as it is in PvE. The WoW devs are likely responding to the competition, knowing that they might lose big fans of PvP to WAR. In that vein, they're also ensuring that daily PvP quests are available from levels 10 - 80.It's hard not to look at this as a good change. The only argument against it we can think of is that if a player levels from 10 - 80 entirely in the battlegrounds, he or she will not have the necessary experience to run instances and raids at later levels if a change of course is desired. But that seems like a fairly minor criticism of a long-needed addition to the game.
Five easy achievements you can snag right now
With the pre-Wrath content patch, 3.0.2, going live this afternoon, anticipation for the new Achievement system is growing. While you will find that you have been granted some for things that you have already accomplished, there will be a seemingly endless list of 'to dos' dropped into your lap. How far you choose to take your achievement hunt is up to you, of course. Personally, I am fixing to be quite the achievement junkie. Still, not all of them will take time, effort, fat wallets and endless patience to acquire. In fact, there are some achievements up for grabs that require such little effort that you might as well snatch them up. Can I keep him? Obtain a vanity pet. Seriously, all you need to do is hop over to your local vanity pet vendor, or the auction house, and pick one out. If you already have one, great. Click on the item to "learn" it, as the items are now considered spells (as are mounts). It's Happy Hour Somewhere. Drink 25 diferent types of beverages. This will require a bit of traveling, but it's definitely a fun one. Start with all of the main waters, from Refreshing Spring Water up to Purified Draenic Water. Then seek out the coffee vendor that walks the path in Lower City, and you should be up to ten. Bubbling Water and Enchanted Water, both easy drops, will bump you up to twelve. Check out the vendor outside of Shadow Labyrinth or in the Stormspire to collect another two water. The Bar Maiden in Shattrath has five alcohols, bringing you to a total of 19 drinks. If you're tired at this point of checking every bar and Innkeeper around, start visiting your faction reputation vendors. Usually after friendly, good eats and drinks are offered. Represent. Collect one out of the 47 tabards. If you aren't in any position to grab one of the Outland tabards, try running the Scarlet Monastery - Armory until the Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade drops from the mobs summoned once you've downed Herod. This makes a leisurely guild project, and gives you a chance to goof around on Vent; because you know, no one ever does that during serious raiding. Duel-icious. All you have to do is simply win one duel against another player. This one is so easy, you can rig it. 5 Daily Quests Complete. Finish five daily quests. This one is too easy, as long as you are level 70 and eligible for most of the dailies. Even if you hate the daily quests, there are some for everyone. From the gathering quests to the daily battleground, cooking and fishing quests, I'm sure you can drag yourself through five.
Ask a Beta Tester: The Borean Tundra, Paladin spells, and more
Welcome to Ask a Beta Tester! We're not going to waste any time today, and just jump in feet first with Jerematic's question...Are there any other world PvP objectives, beyond Wintergrasp?There aren't any objectives as far as things you can capture, no, not really. However, there are little PvP areas in certain zones. For example, there are PvP quests in Grizzly Hills. You take the quest, you are PvP flagged as long as you have the quest, and you have to complete it in a nearby area. In the Grizzly Hills example here, the Horde and the Alliance are duking it out in a massive logging camp that they've chased the Venture Co. away from. Have you ever wanted to ride down a river on the back of a huge log? Wrath'll do it for ya.Chalios asked...I'm a prot pally and I was wondering that since Blessings of Kings is going to be 2% stat increase base with an extra 8% on the improved version, will Greater Blessings of Kings start off with 2% as well at base and scale with the improved version or will it still be 10% and provide me with an extra 4 talent points?The Greater Blessing will work the same way regular ol' Blessing of Kings works in Wrath. 2% per talent point. You don't get to skip out on spending 4 talent points.
Ask a Beta Tester: More on daily quests and champions
Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester! I've plugged in more music for you above, this time from Icecrown Glacier. If you're feeling kind, you should go give some love to the guy that posted them later on. For now, though, we're here to answer your Wrath of the Lich King questions!Sorano asked...While killing mobs in a dungeon that normally gives rep for a faction, for example: The Wyrmrest Accord, if I am wearing the tabard representing the Warsong Offensive, will I gain reputation for both Wyrmrest Accord and Warsong Offensive at the same time?Contrary to the original description of the feature, you only get rep with one faction at a time. Personally, I think that's a better design. If you're working on a particular rep, you can still help friends out in random unrelated Wrath dungeons without feeling punished. If you only received half of the rep gains, you would still want to go to Violet Hold for your Kirin Tor rep instead of Utgarde Pinnacle, just for random examples. Going to Utgarde and getting half of the payoff just feels punishing. Feeling punished for helping friends sucks.
Ask a Beta Tester: Shaman, Engineers, and Feral Druids
Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester, where for one glorious day, we don't have any passenger mount questions! But I know, deep down, there are a thousand more on the horizon.Elmo asked...How are Enhancement Shamans shaping up? I heard silly things like Elemental gear is great for them or 2x fast weapons with Flametongue. Are we really gonna make that much of a turn around? In other words, is my hard earned gear all worthless? Not just the epic gems and Strength enchants.Enhancement Shaman did hit a weird point where that was true, but I don't think it was ever intended that the 'final product' would look that way. There were some Windfury bugs and wonky unfinished tuning that caused that, but as another reader mentioned, the devs are working on getting everything fixed and proper. Things will be a little different from Burning Crusade, but not so much so that Enhancement Shaman are wearing Elemental gear to melee.
Daily Cooking quests from the Wrath beta
We've added the Cooking quests from a recent Wrath of the Lich King beta patch to our Wrath Cooking gallery, and I have to say that I've really enjoyed them so far. The quests are more involved and entertaining than the ones from The Burning Crusade, I think. They require more than running to your guild bank, withdrawing 4 Warp Burgers, then depositing whatever random meat you get out of your crate.They have sort of a fun dynamic: You're helping the chef in your faction's inn supply meals for the denizens of Dalaran. You generally don't need to travel all over the world gathering materials or anything like that. Most of your supplies are right there within Dalaran, and you deliver your meals as needed. You need to pop down into Crystalsong Forest to beat up a few animals for some of the quests, but that only requires clicking on a crystal to deliver you down below Dalaran. If you want to, you can even stock up on the Chilled Meat some of these require. By the time you've leveled to 80 you'll probably already have a ton of it since it drops off of almost every beast in Northrend. I'm not sure why, but it feels much more satisfying to assemble meals right there in/around Dalaran rather than flying around the entirety of Outland gibbing killer birds and using demons as fire. You would think the whole 'I cooked this upon the corpse of a demon' dynamic would be the more entertaining of the two.These are daily quests, and at the level cap they reward roughly 15 gold and a Dalaran Cooking Award which is used as currency for buying new recipes.%Gallery-30806%
Breakfast Topic: Direction for professions
Over the last few days, we've been given some exciting new details for craftsmen everywhere. Haven't been keeping up? Here's a quick summary of some of the more interesting developments: The alchemical discovery system might become a feature of all professions, although it would likely be restricted to "fun" recipes. Daily quests awarding tokens to craftsmen to use at a special vendor selling recipes might be implemented. In this way, there would be a bit more individuality between players. The best items you can craft for any given slot will be available around 350 instead of 375, as in The Burning Crusade. Tailors are getting their own flying mount, the Magnificent Flying Carpet. Fishing will become more interactive. Blacksmiths will be socketing. Enchanters will be able to sell their enchants on the Auction House. Engineers are getting a form of enchants, rather than having to cart around so many items. The list goes on. In fact, there are several interesting and fun abilities and recipes on the horizon for all professions. Which changes are you most excited about? Are you thinking of switching trades because of some of the upcoming goodies? If you don't currently have a crafting profession, are you considering getting one?Edit: The best items you can craft for any given slot in The Burning Crusade came at the skill cap (375) and Blizzard now feels this was too late. In Wrath, you will acquire them earlier.
Ask a Beta Tester: The Argent Crusade
It's that time again, ladies and gents. Alex here with today's round of answers to your Wrath Beta questions. Keep the questions coming, and we'll keep answering. To everyone that asked about Arena points: We don't know anything about that yet, and Blizzard doesn't either. As soon as they know, we'll know, and then you'll know.Gurluas asks...How many high elves are there in Wrath, and what are their role now that they have thier own faction?The High Elves actually have a pretty strong presence, which I'm rather excited about. The High Elves (and Blood Elves to a much lesser extent) are one of my favorite Warcraft races, and it makes me sad I can't play one. Alliance FTW. Dalaran, first of all, is packed full of them. Most of them are under the banner of the Silver Covenant, an Alliance-aligned faction of High Elves that aren't too happy about the Blood Elves being given a sizable section of Dalaran.There are also High Elves scattered throughout the Alliance forces in Northrend. There are a few of them in the 7th Legion (no, they're not all High Elves), the Argent Crusade, and just the Alliance forces overall. The fellow in charge of the Alliance contingent helping the Red Dragonflight at the Red Dragonshrine is a High Elf. He's a total badass, by the way. Check him out up there. Ashkandi is Draconic for Awesome.
Ask a Beta Tester: More Titan's Grip
We're back again with today's round of Ask a Beta Tester questions. I tried to answer as many as I could, but time is a fickle mistress and I was going to write some sort of metaphor here but I can't think of one, so if you would all be so kind, come up with one for me. If I didn't get to your question today, don't worry, we'll be doing these for as long as there are questions left to answer. Just post it in the comments section below, and we'll try to get to it as soon as we can. Jamesisgreat asked: How much gold are you getting rewarded per quest on average? I mean is it worth us saving up our gold for Wrath or are quests going to reward 100g a pop or something? Most quests throughout the starter zones give around 5g each, though group quests offer more. On top of that there are the green rewards you don't use that you can vendor, so you don't need to save a lot of money. I advise saving up a little bit though, because questing to 80 is not going to get you the (roughly) 8,000g you'll want to buy the ring that ports you to Dalaran. You won't be totally broke at 80 if you don't save money now, but you won't be able to run around and buy whatever you want either. Northrend is a big place, so that ring will be nice even if you only use it for the portal. You can be free to set your hearth elsewhere.
Breakfast Topic: Mount money and patch 2.4.3
The most anticipated change coming with patch 2.4.3 for a good portion of the player base is the lowering of the requirement for basic land mounts to level 30, complete with a slash of the price of training down to 35 gold. Overall, this is very good news for anyone who is leveling or plans to level a new character any time soon. With this change, though, has come a dilemma for many people with characters in the level 30-40+ range in the past few weeks: If my character just hit 30, do I keep on going, or shelve him until I can buy a mount so I don't have to hoof it through Stranglethorn Vale? If my character just hit 40, do I buy the mount now, or do I wait until the patch so I can save a whole pile of gold?
Neutral Factions: An idea whose time has passed
Neutrality in factions started with the Steamwheedle Cartel and only got worse. It seems that once you get to the level cap, most of the intense rivalry between the factions, at least as expressed in the PvE game, peter off to nothing. Almost every faction accepts both Horde and Alliance fighters. In Burning Crusade, they even share the same capital, and it looks like that will be happening again in WoTLK with Dalaran -- despite that fact that, 50 levels earlier, the Horde utterly devastated Dalaran's holdings in Silverpine Forest and Hillsbrad. The general argument for this change is that at higher levels, most people learn to put aside their differences and fight the greater challenges that threaten to wipe both sides out. My problem with that line of reasoning is that up until the end game, what we're trying to wipe out is each other. In the Ghostlands, the Night Elves are involved in extensive operations to attack the Blood Elves. In Ashenvale, the Horde is constantly attacking the Night Elves, including setting up spy posts and killing their animal companions. In the southern Barrens, the Dwarves are willing to wipe out the Tauren to set up their excavations. In Lordaeron, the Forsaken have the stated intent of wiping out the alliance, devastating one settlement and even making a preliminary attack against Southshore.
Hybrid Theory: Gold and the road to Wrath
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.It's a little early to get nervous about not being prepared for the upcoming expansion, but it's never too early to start the preparations. If you start ahead of time, you'll never even need to worry about it coming down to crunchtime. Plus, if you finish getting ready ahead of time, you can take those last few weeks before Wrath nice and easy. Something I noticed a lot as we neared The Burning Crusade, everyone and their mother spent eight hours a day in battlegrounds that final month before the expansion, and by the time we could go through the Dark Portal most of them were burned out on playing WoW.The absolute number one thing we can be sure you'll need in Wrath is gold. It doesn't matter what they do to your gear or your class, gold will be needed. Even if gold won't be worth as much as it is right now, you'll need it. You can be sure of that. Heck, even if you don't need gold for anything at all in Wrath by some miracle, it's cool, don't worry. 10,000g can buy you roughly 6,666,666 bottles of Moonglow when the Lunar Festival comes around. Think about that, man. Moonglow is awesome....Hm, I hope that math is right.
Buying your way through raid content
There's a new game in town, and Artirius of the Aerie Peak server has noticed it, and admittedly, so have I. With attunements gone, it is now possible for any level 70 to go in and see tier 5 and 6 content whenever they want. Of course, they don't generally have a prayer of actually downing bosses unless they have 20-24 well geared people to help them out. That's where gold comes in. With a few thousand gold, you can buy your way into a tier 6 group that doesn't need the tier 6 armor and go along for the ride. A few hours later, you come out on the other end with Illidan dead and a few shiny new drops, even if you've never set foot in Karazhan. It's not just people trying to buy these slots in the trade channel either. As Artirius observes, many raid groups are actively soliciting for buyers for their raid slots. On my own server, one Horde group is trading tier 6 runs for large quantities of certain herbs, promising that all but a few select drops will go to the people who buy their slots with stacks of Netherbloom and Ghost Mushrooms. So what's causing this?
World of Kung Fu announces new daily events
World of Kung Fu is the radical 3d martial arts MMORPG that utilizes Chinese mythology and themes for its setting. The game is free to play, and uses a micro-transactions to sustain development costs. It's important to stress that goods purchased in the "item mall" are not required to complete any quests or objectives in the game. New players also receive three "novice cards" that can be traded for in game items or cash including the following: Earth temple, which grants instant travel to any city already visited. Lion Toy, which will resurrect your character. And the Tai Yi Pill, which grants full healing. To keep player s busy over the summer VestGame Entertainment has announced regularly scheduled events, which World of Warcraft players would recognize as daily quests. However, the daily events in World of Kung Fu aren't just your run of the mill fair, one is a trivial pursuit type of challenge. Quests are given out by Town Crier in the city of Liuhe and their rewards will range from experience, cash, and even rare items. Hey, it's free, and worth checking out if you are struggling to find something to play this summer.
Part Time Druid fights WoW apathy
It's that time again -- we're in the slump right before the expansion, when people get bored of playing, no one wants to reroll another character because new options are just around the corner, and there's a general sense of apathy around the game. Why play what we've got when the new and shiny is almost here? Fortunately, this time seems a little better than last time -- lots of guilds are still rolling through the endgame, and there's still lots to do, from Arena to battlegrounds to reputation and daily quest grinding.Fortunately, Part Time Druid has some good ideas about how to "fight WoW apathy," just in case you can't think of any yourself. PvP and money farming are in here (those are goals that are practically never ending for sure), and the time-tested idea of going back and finding refreshment in an old alt is a good idea as well. But there are some more original ideas in here as well: helping out lowbies (whether they be 16 or 61) is a good idea, and organizing for five mans might be the best idea. With the daily Heroic quest, there's no better time than now to find four friends who want badges and gold, and set up a regular weekly or even daily time to run a Heroic instance.Let's be honest: we're going to at least be waiting a whole summer for this expansion, if not a few months after that. Might as well make the most of it -- set some goals now and get productive (or go try out Age of Conan, we're not picky), and the boat to Northrend will be loading before you know it.
Official SSO quest guide
The official US website came back up an hour or two ago, and with it came a "reputation tips" guide for the Shattered Sun Offensive. Now I asked myself when I saw this, of all the factions, why SSO? They're one of the easiest, not to mention most profitable, factions out there; surely people can just do a bunch of dailies and get to Exalted in a week or so.However, it turns out that although this presents itself as a faction guide, what it really is is a quest guide. It covers all the Isle of Quel'Danas daily quest as well as the SSO-associated Outland dailies. While you won't find anything new in there if you've done the quests a few times, newcomers to the Isle may find some useful tips, such as: Do Further Conversions and Arm the Wards at the same time. You can take the readings for Know Your Ley Lines while being attacked. You don't have to have killed the Emissary of Hate to plant the banner on him for The Battle Must Go On; just find the corpse. You have to be wearing the goggles to see the distortions for The Multiphase Survey. Your Flare can pick up charges off the Incandescent Fel Sparks for Blast the Gateway even if you're not the one who kills the Spark, as long as you're nearby. I must confess, I've stopped doing the dailies altogether now, as I'm Exalted on both my 70s and have faster ways to get gold when I need it. But it is certainly one of the more enjoyable reputation grinds.
Poll: How many dailies do you complete?
Let's take a poll for a future article I'm working on about daily quests. I want to know (and I'm sure some of you will be interested too): on average, how many daily quests do you complete each day?For me the number is nine. I do six out in the Isle of Quel Danas, and then three in Outland (the mining, fishing, and cooking daily). I have a couple of friends who do 25 every day, and I have other friends who only do one or two. I was surprised yeterday in my article about making money through the AH that there were several of you who mentioned that doing all 25 was the norm.So vote away and lets us know how many daily quests you do every day.%Poll-14967%
Breakfast Topic: Have dailies replaced old fashioned grinding?
One of the stated goals of making daily quests so vast and varied in WoW is to help out those people who would rather quest for money than grind primals all day and night. A good goal, and definitely one that I support. Questing is usually a lot more entertaining than grinding out piles of motes.However, to me it doesn't seem like dailies have replaced grinding as a way of making money. It works fine as an alternative, but it doesn't quite stand up to other ways of generating gold. Dailies make it easier to get money, but it doesn't seem to me like it's the best source of income, contrary to what most people say about daily quests. Dailies allow you to make one hundred gold in an hour, but farming the right primals can get you quite a bit more. Even Fishing in the right places, as Eliah pointed out to me, can double or triple what you could make in that time through daily quests. Let's not forget that the gold generated by daily quests has inflated the market on some items required in crafting, making it even more profitable to grind out the raw materials.What are your thoughts on daily quests as a replacement for old fashioned farming and grinding? As an alternative? Have they done their job well as another option for generating gold, or have they just thrown the market off? Is it possible for anything to actually usurp grinding raw materials as the number one money maker?
Breakfast Topic: Daily chores
Some people really seem to enjoy repping up with various factions. I am not one of them. I've known people who complete the maximum amount of daily quests on multiple characters. It's fantastic that Blizzard has opened up opportunities for relatively easy gold and reputation, but I wish there was a little more variety in the experience. Prior to Patch 2.4, when the limit was ten, I don't think that I ever completed more than four or five dailies per day. Now that we've been bombarded with Quel'Danas dailies and the limit is twenty-five, I do up to eight on rare occasions. I almost always complete the daily battleground quest, but that's about it most days. I know that they're an excellent source of gold, but they feel like such a chore to me. I find daily questing to be almost as much fun as washing dishes and doing laundry. If it means I never get epic flying mounts on my characters, so be it. How many dailies do you do and what keeps you motivated to do them?
The changing face of WoW 2.4
When Blizzard released patch 2.4 for World of Warcraft in March, they brought a plethora of changes to all types of end game play. They introduced new casual daily quests, a new five person dungeon, and a new raid zone for twenty five person play; all of this on a new island off the northern coast of the Eastern Kingdoms called the Isle of Quel'Danas. Many who play WoW consider patch 2.4 to be the largest and most complex patch to date, sans the actual expansions. It is quite rare for Blizzard to open up a whole new zone in a free patch, and even rarer for them to completely change the raiding landscape (a staple of WoW) by removing attunements and lifting other restrictions. Despite having a large and successful release of the patch, Blizzard has continued to update the game in with Patches 2.4.1 and 2.4.2. They offer more tweaks and changes that make the WoW community even happier. Take a look through our gallery for a highlight of the changes we've seen in 2.4 through 2.4.2. %Gallery-8792%
