Inscription is Facked.

I’ve been long delayed in my report on BfA inscription.  A large part of that delay has been Blizzard’s delay in implementation of a reasonable system for Scribes to create Glyphs.

Lemme essplain.  No. Is too much. Lemme summarize.

Starting in the expansion following (3.0) the introduction of Glyphs (2.0), Blizz offered a mechanism for Scribes to create glyphs that were introduced in every expansion. In short, the Ink Trader.  The Ink Trader allowed you to exchange whatever the current expansion’s primary ink for inks from previous expansions.  So, for example, if you were in the Cataclysm expansion, you could exchange Blackfallow Ink for any ink required to create glyphs in Vanilla, BC, or WotLK. In MoP, then you could exchange inks from that expansion for older inks. And so forth. I hope you’re keeping up.

Which brings us to the most notable absence from the current expansion.  Normally, at the introduction of the x.0 patch for an expansion, the Ink Traders in all faction hubs (Stormwind, Shattrath, etc as an example) would provide an exchange of whatever that expansion’s most common ink was for any other ink in the game. For example, in Legion, we could exchange Roseate Pigment for inks from previous expansions.

But now we’re in weird territory.

When BfA rolled, we expected an Ink Trader in the faction cities to accept one of the inks from the current expansion (we figured it would be Ultramarine Ink) for inks from previous expansions. But we found nothing. At that point, the previous expansion (Legion) still held sway. So the only way to create inks for all expansions was: farm Legion inks (Roseate Pigment) or go gather herbs on the continents from the previous expansions, and mill them. This was less than optimal. In a world where we expected to exchange Ultramarine Ink  for other inks, we were met with disappointment, at a massive scale. And now we are in 8.1.0, and there is still no sign of an ink Trader in Boralas, much less Stormwind.

So what we are doing, here in the first content patch of BfA, is farming Legion herbs.  BfA herbs are almost useless – there are three Druid glyphs in this expansion, and that is it – so we are currently either selling them off – a poor financial investment – or banking them against an expected future where they are actually useful.   At this point, I am becoming cynical.

So what is actually going on?  Those that are willing to attribute an  actual plan to all of this are welcome to comfort themselves in the actual market, but those of us that are embedded in the current market are doubtful. Currently, Dreamleaf (https://www.wowhead.com/item=124102/dreamleaf#comments) is the king of the Inscription market due to its secondary conception of Roseate and Sallow (especially Sallow) pigments. BfA Inscription is pretty much dead. And the WoW customer service accounts are pretty much silent on the topic after multiple pokes.

That is: currently. Aside from Cards of *, it is currently impossible to turn BfA herbs into a profit. And Blizzard doesn’t seem to care even so much as to stroke your ego. Sorry.

BtW: in case you were thinking of switching to Alchemy:

Herb-related crafting in BfA is, to be quite brutally honest, a cluster-fuck.  You’re best served in just selling the herbs (especially Legion herbs) than trying to make a profit at Inscription or Alchemy.

Qua Taelia

If you’re Alliance, you’ve met Taelia, agent of Kul Tiras, Fury warrior par excellence, and giver of some of the best stinkeye I’ve ever seen in-game.

 

Lady Ashvane almost went up in smoke just from the glare

 

 

There is a big spoiler near the end of the main arc in this the initial stage of the expansion, so I won’t ruin it if you prefer to stay … unruined.  Turn thy virgin eyes aside, and come back after you find out … well, you’ll know.

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They gone?  Man, what a pain.  But here we are.

Anyway, as you may at this point know, Taelia’s full name is Taelia Fordragon, daughter of Bolvar Fordragon, who was last seen atop the Frozen Throne in Northrend.

Blizzwatch has already had a shot at what that means for purposes of her upcoming lore – i.e. she thinks daddy’s dead, nobody’s told her, this can only end in tears, that sort of thing.

But from the moment I saw her and Anduin Wrynn in the room together, I knew: this has to happen.

Anyone know who did this?

Yes, I know that Flynn’s carrying a torch for her.

I also get that Flynn is the Jack Sparrow in the Jack Sparrow / Elizabeth / Whelp sammich, and I think that Anduin is the Whelp in this case.

 

Yes, Blizz does tend to borrow from others and embellish, why do you ask.

Anyway.

1. Anduin’s gonna need a queen.
2. A Fordragon would be a fabulous choice.
3. It would unite Lorderon and Stormwind once and for all, with a side of Kul Tiras.
4. He’s a priest, she’s a warrior (maybe she can spec change to tank).
5. 

   Come here, little king. Want some candy?

   Jaina’s a bit old for him (back off, cougar lady).

6. Moira would be just wrong. Shadow and Holy? G’wan.

You see where I’m headed here?

Now, it’s possible, with the whole Bolvar the Lich King thingy going on, that Taelia will Go Dark at some point.

I figure we have a 50/50 chance of that, and a 50/50 chance of Anduin going dark. And I just can’t really get into the whole king-going-dark-for-the-dozenth-time thing again, so it’s possible that, if Jaina doesn’t grow a mustache to twirl, that Taelia will be taken from us, go rogue and go after Daddy Dearest or something weird like that.  The sort of thing that happens every other day in Warcraft.

But I hope not. We’re running out of good lore characters, and we need some interesting ones to take their place. But I’m worried because Taelia’s model is just basically a player character model with little to know real upgrades, making it appear that she’s not going to last the expansion out.

Anyway.

I have shipped Anduin Wrynn and Taelia Fordagon, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Thanks for attending my TED talk.

 

So about that thing

If you’re not up with the latest happenings of the past hours (i.e. the commencement of War of the Thorns Pt. 2 and the animated Sylvanas Warbringers story) and care deeply about spoilers, close this tab now and come back when you’re caught up.  There will be no further coddling.

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I want to say first of all a few words about some peoples’ reactions.

One rotten development of this is that a lot of people have been harassing Christie Golden and others associated with the writing of this game, the shorts, and related media. I don’t care if you don’t like the direction a character is taking, harassment is out of line.   It’s one thing to analyze the story without mercy, to call shit out, and express even disgust with the proceedings. Fine. Be as dramatic as you want about a video game.

(I don’t care how many years of your life you’ve “invested” in it. That just makes you look bad when you couch it in those terms. Stop making a fool of yourself).

But personal abuse of any sort is way beyond the pale. Take it down or get the Bitch Slap of the Apocalypse for your troubles.  That’s my personal promise.

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Back to the story.

We’ve known for a year that Teldrassil would burn. We’ve known that likely Sylvanas would be the burner, and that Azerite might in some way figure into all of this.

Blizzard assured us that Sylvanas wasn’t going full on evil, saying the world was “gray, not black and white”, or words to that effect.

Aaaand Sylvanas then turned full on evil.  She burned that tree down for spite’s sake.

I don’t want to hear how she was better off not fighting a Resistance so it was a good tactical move. She had full on planned to capture until Delaryn Summermoon sassed her, telling her she would never defeat hope. And Sylvanas, morally grey Warchief of the Horde, who until then had other plans, ordered the tree burned. AND forced Delaryn to watch it. Deliberately, sadistically.

This is not me RPing angry Alliance, this is me saying that the character they depicted shows all the signs of a sadistic, evil creature not too far removed from Garrosh Hellscream himself. Cruel, capricious, and, from what I can see, just plain greedy. She’s missing a moustache to twirl, but so is Elon Musk.

And that’s a problem for Horde players that have been “we’re not evil” for all these years.  Granted, this is the same Horde that Pearl Harbor’d Theramore and Scourged Gilneas, but otherwise a peaceful, pastoral group of people that were just trying to get by, farm grain, murder elves, same as everyone else.

The Horde now have a maniac in charge again, and I think this time it’s breaking them.  I have seen a LOT of people revolting. (I’ve seen some revolting people too, which we’ll speak of in a moment). They are not happy and they are making themselves known.

In a way it’s kinda comforting to know that some people, when confronted with what their nation has become, will not, in actuality, go along with it.  It feels like maybe we’ve learned something from the Nazis after all. Refrains of “Not our Warchief” reflect the real-world cries of “Not our President”. In a way, I wonder if Blizz isn’t making some sort of statement here.

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Sliding back into the story … it’s hard to take it all in.  I have two Kaldorei toons, both noob’d on Teldrassil back when getting to Stormwind was a harrowing journey through high-level dangers. I have a lot of memories associated with Darkshore, Teldrassil, Auberdine, and points beyond. A big chunk of my WoW history is literally up in flames now. Others are taking it even harder. Some people are tremendously attached to their gentle elvenfolk and feel as betrayed as the Hordies that can’t cope with their murderer-in-chief.

Right now the Kaldorei and Gilneans are camped out in Stormwind Harbor (seriously, Anduin, can we get some housing here?) and presumably they will be in search of new digs after all of this settles. Though, personally, I think, after they fill in that nasty basement, Lorderon would make a fine new home for our displaced friends.  And maybe they’ll team up and take back Gilneas as well – that’s a huge waste of a beautiful city otherwise.

Maybe once the Sindorei disavow the Horde and join the Alliance, they will reunite with their sylvan relatives, we can fire up the jets, and Kaz Modan can fly off to Mars like a rocket ship.

Hey, you never know. Haven’t you read ElfQuest?

Might be a long wait

Mrs Grimm noticed on her hordie that the zep to Undercity was missing, and there was just a portal there now.  On a hunch, I sped my way to Stormwind harbor, to see what there was to see of the boat to Teldrassil. Yep, it was gone, too.

I kindly /tell’d the person waiting for the boat to take the portal behind the ballista , and as I did so, I heard a ship’s bell, and this happened.

Those two guards and their prisoner just appeared out of nowhere, and are headed off to the stockades.

Aside from where’s-the-boat, the other pressing question is why are Alliance troopers toting obviously Human prisoners from Teldrassil?