World of Warcraft

[Stigmata]

Info about Alt Leveling.

Shadowlands Threads of Fate Alt Leveling - Account-Wide Unlock After Completing Chapter 1 of Covenant Campaign - Wowhead News

I took one Horde (pally) and one Ally (monk) through Maw to open portal to Bastion. I'll probably complete Chapter One of them, but my lesser alts will choose the Threads of Fate leveling method.

Oh wow, I had no idea about this. Shadowlands is proving to be pretty awesome thus far. Do you follow the lore at all? There's some crazy stuff going on with the shadowlands story.

 

[Totenkindly]

I only followed the story up to bastion so far. I like how everything seems to fold into an actual storyline though.

 

[Stigmata]

I only followed the story up to bastion so far. I like how everything seems to fold into an actual storyline though.

It appears Arthas (The Lich King) will be back in some capacity, which should be interesting. I'm also very curious what the deal is with Sylvanas, as it appears she has been building up to be the next big bad since Warlord Of Draenor. The ingame cinematic where she has Anduin captured leads one to believe she is interested in disrupting the cycle between life and death. I'm just very interested to see where this is all going to go as the expansion progresses (I'm more interested in the Lore than actually playing right now, lol).

 

[Totenkindly]

It appears Arthas (The Lich King) will be back in some capacity, which should be interesting. I'm also very curious what the deal is with Sylvanas, as it appears she has been building up to be the next big bad since Warlord Of Draenor. The ingame cinematic where she has Anduin captured leads one to believe she is interested in disrupting the cycle between life and death. I'm just very interested to see where this is all going to go as the expansion progresses (I'm more interested in the Lore than actually playing right now, lol).

I don't know the old lore super-well, but Arthas killed her and her squad of rangers, correct? And she's had issues ever since -- she seems acutely aware of the mortality she lost and being in her current state of undeath has emotionally tormented her ever since. Which is why she tipped the board in bfa -- she's seeking a way out of the prison of her existence, and fuck the world in the process.

I wasn't sure what the Jailer means in response to Anduin -- something about "no, I have exactly what I need" or something like that, to end the Maw segment. I'm not sure how it all fits together yet.

Honestly, she's a far better villain than Garrosh, who I got sick of pretty quickly.

But you probably know the old lore better than me. I never paid much attention and was confused for a long time why there were two Draenors I remembered from BC and then WoD, and realized in the last year that the WoD was back in time so it was an earlier version of BC and a gambit by Grommosh to lead super orcs into the present day to win again. I'm terrible....!

 

[Totenkindly]

Side note -- isn't Anduin the son of Arthas and Jaina, who was raised as Varian's son or something? Or did I misread that?

---

So I finished the Thanksgiving event. I realized it's a great way to level old-world cooking since you have all the ingredient there super-cheap. You can go from 0-295 or so within about 30-40 minutes (since you have to bounce among your faction's capitol cities). I guess the final five have to come from recipies/ingredients in old Silithus.

You get Food Fight by finding someone else to sit at a table with, targeting them, then passing food to them repeatedly until it bounces off their head.

The others are straight forward. The most annoying (and the last one I did) is the Turkey Lurkeys or whatever... you have to earn the toy (5 minute cooldown) turkey gun or the 1-shot turkey guns from turning in dailies for the non-clothes item (essentially a chest you open) -- and then shoot ten rogues -- one of each of the original races + a belf and a worgen. it all has to be on the same character too, which complicates things as half of the races of rogues are not in your faction.

With SL open, I got everything I could in my faction, then hung out in Oribus biding my time. I got it down to gnome, worgen, and dwarf pretty quick. The gnome rogue wasn't bothersome, but this late in the game I was concerned about the frequency of worgen and dwarf rogues. Fortunately, I was able to find all three of them on Friday, by just watching and waiting. (You have to be fast in case someone else shoots them first.) I was afraid I would have to go swing through Stormwind and swoop down out of the sky to land and snipe people (maybe dying) if I could not find enough in Oribos, although I think the toy allows you to shoot people outside of the actual week-long holiday.

The reward for this event is just the title "The Pilgrim" and a pet turkey, though. Still... titles are cool.

-----

I completed the main question throughline in Bastion last night and opened up Maldraxxus but didn't do anything there yet. I see how it is unfolding -- you are basically trying to investigate a certain series of problems in Bastion, and this inadvertently leads you to Maldraxxus.

I noticed that there are drops in the Bastion dungeon that contribute to soulbinds. So it sounds like you need to do dungeon runs. Sigh.

So far in Bastion, all the gear drops were too low to be of use to a 110 iLvl character. (they were typically iLvl 96-98 items.) However, I did get one Epic upgrade to a 116 item that was helpful. I think I hit level 55 (barely) in Bastion following the main questline. So I suspect unless it speeds up, you could hit 60 by the end of Maldraxxus or the start of Achenweald or whatever it is called.

Has anyone had crashing issues? I don't know what my system is interacting with, but basically I now exit the game every hour or two to reload fresh, to avoid a crash. It's like the memory gets filled up and has been much more common after the SL release. Now it's been happening when I play in a realm for a bit and then take the ride to Oribos -- I land and it overflows and crashes. I fill out the pop-up error report each time in case it's on the WoW side.

 

[Stigmata]

INCOMING NERD DUMP!

I don't know the old lore super-well, but Arthas killed her and her squad of rangers, correct? And she's had issues ever since -- she seems acutely aware of the mortality she lost and being in her current state of undeath has emotionally tormented her ever since. Which is why she tipped the board in bfa -- she's seeking a way out of the prison of her existence, and fuck the world in the process.

Yes, Arthas kills Sylvanas during the Scourge invasion of Quel'thalas where Arthas as a deathknight takes the scourge (undead army) into Silvermoon to use the powers of the Sunwell to raise Kel'thuzad (final boss of the Naxxramas raid). He raises her as a Lich but eventually regains control of herself but can very vividly remember her death and him splitting her soul. After that point she goes kinda mental, whereas before she was a very esteemed ranger within the High Elves (name of bloodelfs before all this stuff happens).

I wasn't sure what the Jailer means in response to Anduin -- something about "no, I have exactly what I need" or something like that, to end the Maw segment. I'm not sure how it all fits together yet.

Me either. I have no idea what that meant but I'm very curious to see where that goes.

Honestly, she's a far better villain than Garrosh, who I got sick of pretty quickly.

Yeah. Garrosh was extremely one-dimensional and pretty boring. I hate that he had two expansions dedicated to his basicness.

Side note -- isn't Anduin the son of Arthas and Jaina, who was raised as Varian's son or something? Or did I misread that?

Anduin isn't related to Jaina and Arthas. Anduin is a Wrynn whereas Arthas is a Menethil (Anduin's family is the leaders of the kingdom of Stormwind whereas Arthas' family were the rulers of Lordaeron, the name of the kingdom that existed before Arthas killed his father and the kingdom fell and became what is now the Undercity). Varian was Anduin's real dad and you don't hear much about his mother. The Alliance is technically given that name when the kingdoms of Lordaeron combine their forces with the kingdom of Stormwind, plus the Dwaves, Nightelves, and Gnomes.

 

[Totenkindly]

I think my time in WoW is momentarily done -- I don't know what got changed in SL, but I've been having occasional crashouts this week periodically when trying to fly into Oribos from Bastion or other areas and would have to restart.

Now last night I was in Maldraxxus, went to use the xmog on my Yak, and the game basically decided it was done. I crashed out due to "not enough memory" and now any time I use the game, I can't get past the character loading screens. I tried my character in Maldraxxus and it bombs. Tried my character in Bastion. It bombs. Tried characters I did not even bring into SL and it bombs.

My system meets the recommended specs (and higher), let alone the required specs.

I tried renaming my cache, wtf, and interface folders so it would start with new ones that did not have any corrupted data. It bombs.

I tried lowering some of my graphics settings to alleviate load. It bombs.

I typically remove Chrome extensions and other background processes running in Windows 10. In the past, this typically helped prevent issues (like Chrome and WoW would fight over resources, typically leading into a crash). It still bombs. The only thing really running is Kaspersky, which has always been running without real issues.

Reinstalled the nVidia graphic driver a few times. Still bombs.

Turned it off. Pulled the power cord. Air-blew all the dust out of the inside of the case. Checked the card seatings. Restarted. It bombs.

I got stuck badly enough that I actually had to contact Tech Support forums, which is something I rarely do. No response yet. At least it was entertaining to read the wacky messages from other people bitching about WoW and how sucky tech support is. (Like, maybe it feels good for them to vent... but the barebones griping will not resolve their problem any faster.)

At least I'm not on a timeline, aside from wanting to complete the Winter Veil event coming up in December through Christmas/NYE. I'm having fun but I don't feel compelled to be completing anything, I'm just be-bopping along. But it's frustrating because it's not clear what the problem is, why my high-end system suddenly is choking w/ the SL release after being fine in BFA, and how I resolve it.

 

[Stigmata]

I think my time in WoW is momentarily done -- I don't know what got changed in SL, but I've been having occasional crashouts this week periodically when trying to fly into Oribos from Bastion or other areas and would have to restart.

Now last night I was in Maldraxxus, went to use the xmog on my Yak, and the game basically decided it was done. I crashed out due to "not enough memory" and now any time I use the game, I can't get past the character loading screens. I tried my character in Maldraxxus and it bombs. Tried my character in Bastion. It bombs. Tried characters I did not even bring into SL and it bombs.

My system meets the recommended specs (and higher), let alone the required specs.

I tried renaming my cache, wtf, and interface folders so it would start with new ones that did not have any corrupted data. It bombs.

I tried lowering some of my graphics settings to alleviate load. It bombs.

I typically remove Chrome extensions and other background processes running in Windows 10. In the past, this typically helped prevent issues (like Chrome and WoW would fight over resources, typically leading into a crash). It still bombs. The only thing really running is Kaspersky, which has always been running without real issues.

Reinstalled the nVidia graphic driver a few times. Still bombs.

Turned it off. Pulled the power cord. Air-blew all the dust out of the inside of the case. Checked the card seatings. Restarted. It bombs.

I got stuck badly enough that I actually had to contact Tech Support forums, which is something I rarely do. No response yet. At least it was entertaining to read the wacky messages from other people bitching about WoW and how sucky tech support is. (Like, maybe it feels good for them to vent... but the barebones griping will not resolve their problem any faster.)

At least I'm not on a timeline, aside from wanting to complete the Winter Veil event coming up in December through Christmas/NYE. I'm having fun but I don't feel compelled to be completing anything, I'm just be-bopping along. But it's frustrating because it's not clear what the problem is, why my high-end system suddenly is choking w/ the SL release after being fine in BFA, and how I resolve it.

Seems like you've tried all the things I would've recommended. My only thoughts next would be fo suggest doing a full delete and reinstall of WoW, and if that doesn't work then I would reformat your computer. Maybe you have a bunch of ram hungry processes running on startup that may require turning off?

 

[Totenkindly]

Seems like you've tried all the things I would've recommended. My only thoughts next would be fo suggest doing a full delete and reinstall of WoW, and if that doesn't work then I would reformat your computer. Maybe you have a bunch of ram hungry processes running on startup that may require turning off?

It's possible. It's just that I have been through the list in Task Manager and can't find things I recognize enough to turn them off -- some of it might be necessary stuff. I have canned all the obvious things except for Kaspersky, but you know what a pain in the ass it is to try to kill an anti-virus process, they are designed to not be killed off easily. But I don't really use the computer for web surfing or anything, I only really use it for discord and Wow and games in general...

I was going to wait to try a delete/reinstall until after I hear back from tech support. It just sounds pretty drastic. But yeah. That would be one of my next steps, arggg.

 

[Stigmata]

It's possible. It's just that I have been through the list in Task Manager and can't find things I recognize enough to turn them off -- some of it might be necessary stuff. I have canned all the obvious things except for Kaspersky, but you know what a pain in the ass it is to try to kill an anti-virus process, they are designed to not be killed off easily. But I don't really use the computer for web surfing or anything, I only really use it for discord and Wow and games in general...

I was going to wait to try a delete/reinstall until after I hear back from tech support. It just sounds pretty drastic. But yeah. That would be one of my next steps, arggg.

How much RAM do you have? It may also help to allocate some more virtual memory if your harddrive can accomate it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Okay, here is something you might be able to advise on, because I don't understand. (I can start Googling.)

On my basic Win 10 System info page, I've got this:

Manufacturer: Digital Storm [it's a custom-made system by that company]
Processor: Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.2Ghz 4.20Ghz
Installed Memory (RAM): 8.00 GB (4.00 GB usable)
System Type: 64-bit OS, x64-based processor.

My question is why is only 4.00GB usable? I have 8GB, so what the hell does that mean?


EDIT: Currently trying to determine if I need a BIOS update. I haven't messed with BIOS for years and it looks like AMI has changed their terminology since this one was released so their site is as confusing as hell. Why isn't this ever easy?

 

[Stigmata]

Okay, here is something you might be able to advise on, because I don't understand. (I can start Googling.)

On my basic Win 10 System info page, I've got this:



My question is why is only 4.00GB usable? I have 8GB, so what the hell does that mean?


EDIT: Currently trying to determine if I need a BIOS update. I haven't messed with BIOS for years and it looks like AMI has changed their terminology since this one was released so their site is as confusing as hell. Why isn't this ever easy?

There's something going on with your windows 10 settings that's limiting the amount of ram usable, I'm just not sure if it's a bios setting or a windows setting. That said, just in general, you need more RAM. Your CPU is still very serviceable for what you're doing, but the lack of RAM is bottle necking how efficiently things can run. Even a jump from 8gigs to 16gigs should provide a decent performance boost without breaking the bank.

 

[Totenkindly]

There's something going on with your windows 10 settings that's limiting the amount of ram usable, I'm just not sure if it's a bios setting or a windows setting. That said, just in general, you need more RAM. Your CPU is still very serviceable for what you're doing, but the lack of RAM is bottle necking how efficiently things can run. Even a jump from 8gigs to 16gigs should provide a decent performance boost without breaking the bank.

I think when I replaced my system in 2017, I had just bought my house and had lots of bills, so that is why I just stuck with the 8gig -- and at the time it wasn't that big a deal.

Now it's not really clear why 4gig of it is being reserved / not accessed, but if it's only using 4gig that would explain it.

Yesterday I did open the case and reseat the RAM chips (there are two 4gigs). Had to try a few times to get them back in solidly, but then it booted up and -- still not using the second 4gig.

I realized i never updated my BIOS in any of that time, though. Stupid me. I missed like 7-8 updates over three years or more. So I searched around and found the BIOS for my motherboard and downloaded. I think I have a flash drive around here, so I will give that a shot later. I hate messing with BIOS though and flashing the chip, I feel like if I screw it up, I'm hosed. But it's possible something in the BIOS never got updated and that's why it's missing 4gig.

Yes, the other option is I can contact my box provider and ask them about upgraded RAM and what I would need to get to 16gig as well as why it might be stuck at 4gig instead of 8.

 

[Stigmata]

I hit 60 on my hunter last night. Pretty much exclusively followed the Shadowlands main story quests through and dinged on the tail end of the Revendreth campaign. Went ahead and finished that, chose my convenant (I went with Night Fae because that's supposed to be the best DPS mathematically for Marksman), and did a few more quests to unlock the world quests and my covenant exclusive mount. And now....the grind-- Getting my alts leveled. Started on my Priest briefly last night and made it about halfway through the maw intro campaign.

 

[Totenkindly]

Okay. I reflashed my BIOS to the latest motherboard version -- and I didn't hose anything, so I was happy!
But it didn't fix my problem.

I got an online support rep while filling out my query (on the site I bought my gear from), they mentioned reseating the RAM but I already had, and they weren't sure what to make of the system picking up 8GB but only recognizing 4GB, so they told me just to finish contacting the tech support gurus. So I provided my request, on what I've tried so far and how can I resolve having my system pick up the 4GB it's missing... and also asking for recommendations on simply upgrading the RAM to 16GB.

Hopefully this will get resolved soon.

I hit 60 on my hunter last night. Pretty much exclusively followed the Shadowlands main story quests through and dinged on the tail end of the Revendreth campaign. Went ahead and finished that, chose my convenant (I went with Night Fae because that's supposed to be the best DPS mathematically for Marksman), and did a few more quests to unlock the world quests and my covenant exclusive mount. And now....the grind-- Getting my alts leveled. Started on my Priest briefly last night and made it about halfway through the maw intro campaign.

Cool beans, glad it is going well.

I was looking at NF too when I level my Marksman. I have looked at my main characters and tried to determine which selections would allow me to have at least one character in each covenant, so I could experience them all.

 

[Totenkindly]

Shadowlands: DPS rankings of classes (UPDATED) - Global Esport News

Subtlety Rogue??? Who would have thought?

My main from MoP was that spec, but everyone would mock me for being such a bad spec and why couldn't I be assassination, etc?

 

[Totenkindly]

I ordered a nice upgrade on my RAM today, best buy should get it to me by tonight.

Basically after doing all my testing (and what didn't fix the problem), I'm suspecting one of my memory modules was bad; there were various ways that might have freed up the 4GB but none of them worked. I had exhausted the typical ways that the problem could be corrected, though, without any success. My system could see all the memory, it just was automatically excluding half of it, and there were no BIOS settings even after the flash to improve the allocation.

I also had not heard back from tech support by my system provider, so I just decided to do the upgrade myself with enough RAM that even if a slot isn't working right, I'll have enough RAM. I can keep troubleshooting if not all of the memory loads as expected, since I'll still have enough anyway.

I also got my ergonomic chair today... but I'm exhausted looking at it, since it came in pieces and I have to assemble it. Uggh.

 

[Totenkindly]

FFS.

The tech support guy wrote me (of course) a few hours after I had ordered the new RAM. He told me just first to try booting with one, then booting with the other, to determine if either stick was bad. I made a formal test of it and checked both the BIOS and the Win System allocation after just booting from each separately -- both sticks were working.

So then (I thought I might have already swapped them once), I just popped the first stick into the slot where the second stick had been, so basically I swapped the sticks, booted, BIOS again picked them both up... but this time Windows System read 8GB with nothing reserved. I then loaded WoW and it ran just fine. Problem solved. Don't ask me why just swapping the sticks worked -- they're the same stick model and everything -- but it did.

So I had him close the ticket. I'm still gonna do the RAM upgrade since it was affordable, and then I'll have RAM to spare, but yeesh.

It's fine, though. I've felt exhausted all week, dealing with work and the loss of my coworker, plus back/neck problems, so I enjoyed being away from the game for some days.

 

[Stigmata]

FFS.

The tech support guy wrote me (of course) a few hours after I had ordered the new RAM. He told me just first to try booting with one, then booting with the other, to determine if either stick was bad. I made a formal test of it and checked both the BIOS and the Win System allocation after just booting from each separately -- both sticks were working.

So then (I thought I might have already swapped them once), I just popped the first stick into the slot where the second stick had been, so basically I swapped the sticks, booted, BIOS again picked them both up... but this time Windows System read 8GB with nothing reserved. I then loaded WoW and it ran just fine. Problem solved. Don't ask me why just swapping the sticks worked -- they're the same stick model and everything -- but it did.

So I had him close the ticket. I'm still gonna do the RAM upgrade since it was affordable, and then I'll have RAM to spare, but yeesh.

It's fine, though. I've felt exhausted all week, dealing with work and the loss of my coworker, plus back/neck problems, so I enjoyed being away from the game for some days.

I had that happen once before but it just completely didn't show the other RAM at all versus showing it but not as usable. Upgrading RAM is still beneficial, especially since it seems your overall build isn't that old. It's the least expensive way to make a noticable upgrade in your performance.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's been running fine tonight. After BB promised a delivery, they now told me what I wanted wasn't in stock anymore. Thanks a bunch -- like, don't promise me something on a short-turnaround unless you can deliver, I think that's twice now they screwed up. I canceled that and will place an order for pickup tomorrow at a different store.

-----

I am reminded why I don't much do group content.

Decided to do a low-level dungeon in Maldraxxus. Took a few minutes to read the game notes on the bosses.

Tank is an asshat. At one point runs through a large pool of poison, the rest of the group isn't sure what to do or if he's circling around on other side (since poison has already killed people), so after 15-20 seconds people go to the closer center island in the poison and kill a few things there, on their way across. He has a hissy fit and swears at everyone for not following him and doing a needless fight. (Note: It was a pretty easy fight, not a big deal to do... and it was his fault for running off like a bunch of people leveling up in the first ten days of a release know the dungeon enough to run through a shitload of poison.)

Next boss, we wipe partly because we don't know the mechanics yet; note that I read them but it's a little different the first time you actually do the fight, typically, the mental expectation vs the reality of how the mechanics manifest. The jerk actually was using add'ins to monitor our DPS and showed everyone our output and then bitched because we weren't high DPS enough. (I can understand it in a raid where people vie for slots and you want to minmax output AND people are fully leveled and heavily geared... but not in a PUG dungeon that people might not even know yet, when they are not even geared nor max leveled yet.) He's like, "We can't kill this boss without more DPS." Yeah, well, what -- you want us to just quit the dungeon in hopes you get someone better randomly? Or wtf are you actually asking? Shaming undergeared novices to a dungeon doesn't really change the DPS output.

As it was, now that we knew the fight better, we beat the boss on the next try. Plus, after not playing my spec for a week, I remembered a few abilities I forgot I had, which helped.

Same thing with final boss. He actually was a bit more helpful after we wiped and actually explained the fight, but he was kind of a dick regardless in how he talked down to everyone.

And that's why I really hate doing random group stuff. I don't need that shit. I'm trying to have fun + learn the fights and learn my class spec, and these guys are acting like a mid-level PUG dungeon w/ noobs is hardcore raiding or something. He also happened to be the group leader, so no one even wanted to respond to him lest he think they were arguing and get kicked.

I didn't even get a boss drop on any of the four bosses. It was all pretty lame. The only reason I ran it at all was to do a dungeon quest, to get a 116 piece of gear... so I got that at turn-in, at least.

But yeesh. I end up just wanting to stick with solo games, unless I am playing with people I know.