Battle Pets: Daily Tamer Experience

For those of you unaware, one of my favorite aspects of the game today aside from gold and GDKP raiding is pet battles.  I got into it last year and like most things I ended up documenting certain things.  Maybe this will be of use to you in case you're trying to figure out how the tamers work and why people do the quests everyday.

The reason is simple:  You get a lot of experience depending on the level of pet you are carrying.  I had a theory when I first started that the experience had some sort of diminishing return, so this led to me actually performing battles with every single variety and documenting the results.

As you can see from the chart below, the yellow highlight shows you the spot where you will earn the most experience, and it's a mirror.  This is why it is bad to use a level 3 against a 25, your best return will be a 10 or 11.

Note that the chart assumes you are wearing the safari hat.  If you aren't, then you net 10% off that amount.  If you are using the pet treats, obviously you'll account for the extra boost of 25%.  More or less I use this as a guide so I don't waste experience on pets that are too high or too low.  The difference between 25N and 25P here:  25P are Pandaria trainers, Ns are Northrend and Cata.

Additionally, I put together something for 1-25 Wild Pet battles, and since 1-19 is mostly boring for folks I'm only showing the returns you see when fighting level 20 to 25s.

Again, yellow shows the sweet spot and assumes the safari hat is worn.  Where I placed the "x" means I never got to those levels, but you get the idea.

I figure that since we're about 2.5 months out, I can share this little nugget with you in case you're looking for something to do.  I'm presently trying to get all the pets I have to 25 (or at least most of them) prior to the release.  I have 550ish pets, 170ish at 25, and the vast, vast majority are between 16 and 24 right now.  Only greens are 11-15.  I figure if I get this out of the way, I won't need to bother with my OCD for about another year.

Hope you have a great day and thanks for stopping in!

November 13th is no longer just for Wrath of the Lich King

So at midnight, November 13, 2008 I was standing in line at Wal-muerto (it's the Wal of the Dead), huddled with all my fellow geeks.  I had arrived an hour early because I knew that would guarantee me a Collector's Edition, and the ire of my guildmaster at the time who was freaking out about the dragons.  I still never understood that, he played because of dragons, of which there hadn't been one since Onyxia.  Prior to all of this, the game had been an absolute blast and was inhabited by the old school MMO/gamer community that understood "shit is s'poseda be hard" and not everyone would walk away a winner.

I bought the game, went home all excited, installed it while trolling my GM, completed the first quest, found an inn, and went to bed.  It took me a week to hit my first 80 because, well, I work and 10 levels at 3 hours a night was quite a commitment.  I don't take time off for video games, I take time off for sunny places that serve drinks with umbrellas.  Or places that have snow capped mountains and craps tables, and I bring my own drink umbrellas to those.

Now, 6 years later, we see that same number come up again.  I'm thinking it was a Freudian nod to their most successful release in the history of the franchise, Blizz loves to pay homage.

As I said in my last entry, Warcraft is all social marketing nowadays, and the people who had the access were glued to their screens watching the announcement party for the release date.  Yes, a big party for the announcement of the release date.  It was advertised in the launcher, a countdown clock was all over MMOC and other fan sites...  all to hear the announcement and watch the cinematic for the expansion of a 10 year old game.  I think that means the franchise is going to go on for a while longer.

Just a note for those concerned about the longevity - Blizzard expected maybe 1 million subscribers when Warcraft originally launched.  Don't believe it?  Check out how many original servers they had at launch.  Prior to November 2004, Blizzard was not the behemoth that World of Warcraft built.  Blizzard was known for making RTS games, and their subsidiary Blizzard North handled Diablo.  Today they have an enormous marketing budget and cash flow thanks to the little engine that took the best parts of the MMO industry and improved on them.

I'll tell you how you'll know it's dead:  When they no longer make expansions and merely deliver patch events.  See other MMOs out there for a guide.

It's still interesting.  I play because it is a giant puzzle, and I like puzzles.  I've been playing Diablo 3 like a fiend since March 25, and that's only because someone somewhere buried their foot in the ass of the development team and made it something of quality and something resembling the best franchise Blizzard has. 

What is the first thing I'm doing November 13?  Getting a good night's rest, I have work in the morning.  I still haven't bought the expansion, and I'll probably make that decision in November.

Have a fantastic Fall people!  Thanks for stopping in.