Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 79 - Harvest Festival Time Again

Aprillian and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.   What We've Been Doing AprillianSuyna and Primall ding 30 and head to Og for mounts. Stopped at the trainer for the warlock, good thing, got my dreadsteed, almost paid for training on Suyna, my warlock. I did buy her a wolf mount, for 9g it was a bargain.Suyna and Primall ding 30 and head to Og for mounts. Stopped at the trainer for the warlock, good thing, got my dreadsteed, almost paid for training on Suyna, my warlock. I did buy her a wolf mount, for 9g it was a bargain.Just realized I had not found a replacement for Primall as my main bank alt, and hence hadn't been playing the AH. I reassigned my bank alts and put stuff up and promptly began making money again. Suyna and Primall ding 30 and head to Og for mounts. Stopped at the trainer for the warlock, good thing, got my dreadsteed, almost paid for training on Suyna, my warlock. I did buy her a wolf mount, for 9g it was a bargain.Just realized I had not found a replacement for Primall as my main bank alt, and hence hadn't been playing the AH. I reassigned my bank alts and put stuff up and promptly began making money again.Suyna and Primal went to BB to get the blades for the deadly blunderbuss quest, Iwari made 7 blunderbusses. Then they went back to Ashenvale to turn in the DB and head over to the Satyr camp and get the oil. There were so many people running around it was crazy. So I parked them there and went back to Vapril, level 10 priest I had used Suyna to get to 10. I paired her with a warlock in Deathnell named Thea (with the little degree mark over the a) and I had Theå summon her. Did a few of the starter quests and got Theå to 4 and then headed to Brill. I forgot how nice the Brill quest were. So now Theå is about 8 and Vapril is 12. Then I realize I need to do a lower level alt on my original account so I can use all these extra grant a levels. But I should wait until I got them to say 20, since the 1-10 levels are a piece of cake. So I get yet another bank alt, Cii, she was my letter alt, I sent all the notes people had sent me to her. She is an Orc Warrior. I summon Theå to Durator and the two of them run around getting quest and levelling up. I found the perfect combo, W & W. I'm loving it. Cii charges in and I quickly switch over to Theå who dots and send her imp in. Great combo. Wed I took The and Cii over to skull rock to do the Hidden enemy quest at work on my break. They died a lot, part of the reason was they were underdressed. Thursday morning Aprillian had a spellcloth cd, so she went to Area 52 and when I logged on to Auntrillia and Rilfire, they were still in the inn there from the last Spell cloth. I hadn't really been on any of them. Got out PIA my level 13 mage out to play with Cii and the and realized that's the one to fast forward, portals man, that's the ticket. Took the trio to UC so The can do her warlock quest, she couldn't do the one in Durator, said she was the wrong race when she turned it in at the guy in ogR. I decided to start a mage on my master account, so I had to delete gnobull, the gnome I made for the Running of the Beef 2. I made Tiiaa and I brought in Qub, who was a level 3 warlock belf I had summoned to BB to replace my Horde BB alt. I had him hearth back to the Belf starting zone and then ran the two together. He had rested xp so he leveled faster and every other level I would grant one level to Tiiaa. I didn't think it was a waste because I don't believe I'll get Qub up too high. But then I had to try a new strategy because once they started levelling even, Qub couldn't grant levels without being a level higher than than Tiiaa, so I would hold off on Tiiaa turning in a quest and have Qub turn in a bunch to ding and then grant a level and then have Tiiaa turn in quest. But then Thursday night, which I took off from work, I made yet another mage, on the referred account, this time Weaa an undead Friday, Run through RFC with Ardrion Tiiaa and Weaa, leavel 11 mages, then later WC with level 15 mage. It was so much fun. Brought my level 30 on the raf account AshayoEmail 1Email 1Dear Aprillian and Ashayo, Email 1Dear Aprillian and Ashayo,Since blizzard introduced the Recruit-A-Friend Scheme, I have been addicted to Dual-Boxing, maybe its the fact that I get triple exp, but I think its because it is a whole different take on the game which offers a new outlook on the game and the levelling process. However, I have a few problems with the Dual-Boxing process, first is the fact that due to the fact that you are only in direct control of one character at a time, I feel I won't be able to play one of my characters in a competent manner at 70. However, as this doesn't matter at the moment due to the fact that I am dual-boxing two shamans, I am curious to dual-box two different classes when my current pair reaches 60, and I was wondering if you guys could offer advice on how to be sure to be able to use the characters I have at 70. Secondly, I'm finding it hard to sustain my characters with money on their own rather than having to receive cash in the mail from my paladin, and again, I was wondering if you guys could help me with some advice. Lastly, I was wondering what programs to use to mimic my keystrokes on one computer, I am aware that it is generally O.K if no automation is ok, but rather than risk it, I would like to know what you two use for this, as you haven't been banned, so you must be doing something right ! Thanks, sorry if this is a wall of text that you can't read. Snuffy, 70 Dwarf Paladin (At least its not a gnome or Night Elf) Email 2 Hey guys, JG again (sorry I keep forgetting to sign my emails komish at the end, but JG is fine) I just wanted to submit to you guys my Recruit a Friend Experience. I went ahead and did it on my attempt at a blog over at www.woahcraft.wordpress.com but I'll copy and paste it here if it'll help you out. It's a rather long wall of text, so If all else fails, it'll just be for your personal informative purposes! =) Thanks again for a great show

The Podcast, Ctrl Alt WoW, is a great podcast hosted by Aprillian and Ashayo talking about alts, and people who love making alts. They have been having a few discussions about the Recruit a Friend system and it's benefits to dual boxers everywhere, and in the most recent episode, they asked for people to send in their opinions and thoughts on the system as well as their experience. Here is my submission.

I was an early adopter of the R-A-F system. I recruited myself within a week of the release of the system.

I am a person who finds fun in this game in learning class mechanics. However, as many people who play the game, my time is limited. I am rarely able to play my main to the extent that many people do, so alts are always kind of a shot in the dark as to whether or not I'll ever get them to the cap.

I am not a person who had a maxed out character Pre-BC. While I did play Pre-BC a considerable amount of time, I did not max out a character until the release of Burning Crusade.

Moving this back to the Recruit a Friend system, I was an early adopter, and I did it solely for the purpose of being able to play other classes to the extent that I wanted. The system is amazing, almost to the point where I feel I'm hacking

The experience gains are amazing of course. Triple Experience seems almost as if it is too much, but in my opinion, it is the perfect amount.

The Zhevra mount is… meh. I have it on my warlock because I love mounts in the game, but the Zebra just seems to be a bit out of place in the World of Warcraft. Maybe it is the fact that I am a warlock, but it just doesn't seem to click with the rest of the world. It would have fit better if they had given us a modified version of one of the mounts in the game, or say, maybe an option to have a tiger for the horde or a kodo for the alliance.

Now as to my experience, here is what I Did : I started off trying a few things. I try first, a combination of paladin and rogue, and shaman and rogue, both of which I did not like. I wanted a rogue, but I couldn't get the hang of questing as those combinations. The shaman would always die, or the rogue would die, or something would happen that would always slow me down. After those two trials, I decided to try something ranged, and came up with Mage and Paladin.

Now I started this combination with full intention of duo questing my way to 60 just like every other recruit a friend adopter plans on doing. However, out of the blue, I thought about instances. Instances give decent experience in groups, but if you add the 70, it nerfs the experience you get. Hence, "power-leveling" is impossible to do in this game. Well Recruit a Friend changed all of that.

When someone is getting a run through an instance by a 70, the experience gain is essentially a fraction of what one would get. So lets put it this way, if someone is running Scarlet Monastary with a group, lets say they are averaging about 300 Experience per kill.

Now lets say only two of those characters are running scarlet monastery, but this time with a level 70 running them through it quickly (3 people in the party, 2 lowbies, 1 70). Now this person is only getting 150 XP per kill. Half the experience for half the speed of a normal run.

Now lets say the same thing is happening, only this time, theres a RAF pair with the 70. Now, instead of getting 150 XP per kill, they are getting 450 XP per kill. So now, the pair are getting more XP in a shorter amount of time.

Now here's the kicker. You can do this all the way up to 60 if you wish. I normally stop around 45-50, but up to 60 is definitiely possible.

Here was my order :

Quest 1-8

Ragefire Chasm 8-16

Shadowfang Keep 16-25

Scarlet Monastery (Arms) 25-32

Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) 32-40

Zul'Farrak 40-45 or 40-50

Sunken Temple 45-50

After that, you can move on to Dire Maul, the Black Rocks, things like that, but I normally quest from 50 on.

I did this pattern with my first grouping and it worked like a charm. Keep in mind, doing so gets a bit repetitive, but it is definitely an easy, easy, GAURENTEED way to get there.

Now for those of you who like dual boxing and follow questing and such, this system will be just as good without the instance runs. However, I would suggest you hit each instance at least once with all the quests for it. Why? That's about 1-2 levels free for having someone run you through the instance. Can't beat that.

Now the 30 free levels I gave to my Paladin… I know… you're probably thinking "wait a sec… didn't he say he leveled a paladin and mage duo??" and My answer is yes. I did. However, at about 37, I was really tired of instance runs (mind you… this was my first group… so yes it gets very boring) and tried to do some quests, but the paladin was so slow that I decided to grant 4 levels to my 33 hunter to catch him up to my mage, and then did my hunter/mage combination. The funny thing is, a day later, I went right back to instance grinding… go figure!

So anyways, my first grouping reached the cap, a Blood elf Paladin, a Troll Mage, and an Orc Hunter. Originally I was rather happy with the group and started working my hunter up to 70.

Well… in my semi-altalholic nature, I started getting really bored of my hunter and lost interest in my mage (female trolls… I don't like their appearance anymore) and my paladin. And I realized… "I dont' have an undead or a tauren"

Thus my rogue and my warrior were born. For this pair I did instances up till about 45, and since then I follow quested to about 50, and I have been questing with a friend since then (without my warrior following). The only reason I multibox for this group now is when I'm turning in quests for the 3x turn in boost.

I must say, I respect you, Aprillian and Ashayo, very much. After two pairs of characters being multiboxed (and often triple-boxing my friends mage to run myself through the instance), I can honestly say that I am so tired of triple boxing that I dont' want to do any major multiboxing anymore while I continue to play world of warcraft! For me it was really a draining experience! I really enjoy my classes, but I don't think I'd want to play them together anymore. For this reason, I am transfering my warrior off my second account to my first, leaving my mage on the second account ( I have… ZERO interest… in playing her at all) and letting my second account just run out of time. I plan on granting my last 24 or so levels to a possible twink, and that will be the end of my RAF experience.

I'm near that end soon. My rogue is 56, and my friend and I will be hitting 58 today and heading off into outlands in which case I am done with this system. Farewell Recruit a Friend, and thanks for all you have done.

Ctrl Alt Wow, I hope this helps you guys, and thanks for a great podcast.