I'm Melting! I'm Melting!

I'm English. For me Christmas is all about the rain and the cold. About log fires and hot toddies.

Now I live in New Zealand, Christmas is all about barbeques and mosquitoes. Sweltering heat and soul destroying humidity.

And its fine - I suffer but I cope. I cope by wearing shorts and light t-shirts and after 10 years my feet have finally hardened up enough that I don't need to wear shoes and socks all the time.

The one similarity between Northern Hemisphere Christmas and Southern Hemisphere Christmas is that you tend to get an extended period of time off. And during that time you aclimatise and relax.

So, when after two weeks you return to wearing shirts and jackets and long trousers and footwear, when you find that because of building work the air conditioning is working at 10% efficiency in the building, when humidity within the building is 100% (around 10% higher than outside), when the cold water system is currently running as a temperature you would happily take a shower in and finally when you arrive at work to discover a bunch of builders telling you that they dont "give a damn what you were told, you have to remove those three desks, eight sets of shelves, all those cupboards and six filling cabinets in the next 20 minutes" when you are the only guy under 40 years of age stupid enough to be back at work - well you get an insight into where my head space is at the moment.

Oh well 45 minutes time and I'll close up my office for the weekend and head to my car to drive home. I can survive that long, I am sure of it. Probably. Maybe...

Anyways to WoW - sorry I have probably lost a great many readers already - "Breevok has a whine post guys...give it a miss" but there is to be WoW content for those of you who remain. But there is a link to my previous ramblings - WoW has me in a bit of a sweat at the moment as well...

Lets talk Darkmoon Cards.


Did you tell you I'm broke? Well relatively broke. 360K broke. That's 70k down on where I was a couple of weeks ago. Eeeeek!

I blame the herbs myself.

Its my own fault - I decided that the Darkmoon Cards were worth the risk. I knew Foo wasn't going there, and I had a funny feeling that none of the other glyphers would either. And it turned out I was correct.

On the day (2nd Jan) the Darkmoon Faire arrived some relative unknowns started touting their Darkmoon cards for sale. It was never my plan to compete with them but I was relieved to see that none of the players that I know to have ultra deep pockets we out there plying their wares.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The new Darkmoon Decks come in four varieties -Tsunami (Healing Deck), Volcano (Spellcaster DPS), Earthquake (Tank) and Hurricane (Melee DPS - two varieties Strength and Agility)

Each deck in created by combining the eight cards (ace through eight) of the respective card types (waves, embers, stones and winds). Each card is created by a scribe using 10 inferno inks and 30 volatile life's.

With Volatile Life being 8g on the AH and inferno inks 200g on the AH - if you were dumb enough to buy all your mats each card would be around 2250g each. Each card is created randomly - one of thirty two possible outcomes.

Its obviously cheaper to make inks from herbs: Cinderbloom/Stormvine/Heartblossom/Azshara's Veil - two stacks will give one inferno ink and 10 blackfallow ink. A visit to Jessica Sellers means that on average a stack of herbs gives one inferno ink. If you use Whiptail or Twilight Jasmine - a stack will, on average, give you 1.6 inferno inks.

With prices as they are - you can basically produce an inferno ink for 100g. This reduces the cost of a card to 1250g.

Now if you made 32 cards it would cost 40k in gold. If lady luck was on your side you would end up with four complete decks. Tsunami sells for 40k, Volcano and Hurricane sell for 35k. Earthquake sells for 20k.

40k outlay for 130k return. Not to be argued with eh?

Except you never have lady luck. In fact she hates you. Over the past two weeks I have created around 120 darkmoon cards. I am yet to see a 'Seven of Waves'. Not a single one. There is currently one on the AH for 6k. And there lies the risk of Darkmoon Cards. The RNG.

I personally dont believe each card is created equally. I've moved a number of cards across the neutral AH over the past few days and its very obvious to me that certain cards are created more frequently on some factions/servers than others. One of the other servers I keep on has "Seven of Waves" coming out of every orifice and they sell for 600g on their AH. Its very frustrating but part of the Darkmoon game.

So you fill your gaps - you trade, you purchase, you move across factions. But you must fill the gaps because come tomorrow the faire has gone for another month and all you have is cards.

I cashed in what decks I had the other evening - the result 5 Hurricane, 4 Volcano and 3 Earthquakes. 12 decks in total.

Three Hurricanes were equiped. Puraa got one, and one went to Acidburnx (aka the freak) and Catreann. Sardonica is considering one of the Embers for his shadow spec.

The sweating comes from not knowing if/when they will sell. I have always played Darkmoon decks the same way. Never sell when the faire is on but wait until its gone. Being one of only a few with decks gives you the edge when selling.

I listed a Hurricane and a Volcano yesterday because there is no competition - 36k bid/45k buyout.

So far I have a bid on the Volcano and nothing on the hurricane. Even if I only get 36k for the Volcano I will then be 40k down with two hurricanes, 3 earthquakes and 3 volcanoes. Even I can surely sell these over the next three weeks to make gold. Hopefully even enough to hit 500k.

I don't like to admit the cash I've dropped into herbs over the past two weeks, not to mention the Volatiles. It must be close to 100k. Thankfully other incomes have softened the blow. Its my biggest venture since I started playing - but with risk comes reward. But to say I was relieved when I saw the 36k bid is an understatement. Mind you why being at 360k is such a stress I cant quite fathom.

But it IS a gamble - one Gevlon isnt willing to make. Foo isn't either. But I was never one to follow the crowd was I? :)