WoW Weekly: The Bad Beta Tester

img: Blizzard

All's still pretty quiet on my end when it comes to Azeroth. Other than making good on my promise from the previous post---my banker is once again gold-capped---I still haven't been doing too much in game. However, that's about to change.

But before I get to that, let touch on the big news of the (previous) week: the Legion Beta is live! I haven't received an invite, and I'm not disappointed about it in the least. You see, I'm what they refer to in technical circles as a "bad beta tester." I'm pretty sure I got into the Cataclysm beta...pretty sure. But that alone gives an indication as to how much I actually played it. I bought my way into the Mists of Pandaria beta, and I was glad for it: I thought the game looked beautiful and I really, really wanted the early access. I took the opportunity to play through the pandaren starting area a couple of times (something I'd actually already done at the prior year's Blizzcon) and left it at that. I got into the Warlords beta as well, and didn't play much once again. Ho-hum.

One of the main reasons I don't go all out in Warcraft betas is because I'm really averse to learning story spoilers before the rest of my playmates have the chance to experience them. While I'm as excited as the next guy or gal for new Warcraft content, beta access doesn't fall under the "new content" category for me. Another big reason is the lack of time: I don't find myself in excess, so I have to be discerning about leisure activities. Some folks might point at those two truths and declare that I should not have opted-in to the beta in the first place. To those people, I fart in your general direction.

Blizzard knows what they're doing; for every tester who's trying to run through walls or fall through the world, there's likely a hundred others who are simply going about their routines, calling attention to bugs if and when they come across them. Both are valuable to Blizzard at the end of the day. So let's allow beta testers to be beta testers in all their varied glory, shall we?

On to the other stuff:

Gold-capped...Again
It happened last Friday. As my banker collected auction sales and garrison spoils from my level 100s, suddenly he wouldn't take any more currency. I'm currently sitting on 1.1 million gold across the account, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what some folks have made this expansion, but it's a nice chunk to head into Legion with. The economy is continuing to slide with people off-loading excess mats, which in turn is driving down the price and the likelihood of sale for certain craftable goods.

I'm unsure whether I should take part in a Great Liquidation prior to Legion, or if I should hold on to a cache of profession mats to sell later on once the market's not as flooded. Perhaps I'll consult someone much wiser than I, or perhaps you can leave your informed opinion in the comments!

Back in the Saddle?
If all goes well, I should be making a return to raiding with the guild as early as this week. Regular visitors may remember that in early April I decided to take a break from raiding for the first time in three years...just too much going on outside of the game, and not enough going on in it for me personally. It's weird to think it's only been six weeks, as it feels like it's been a lot longer. I miss the folks I play with and the night we raided together, and with the Warcraft movie, guild meetup, and Legion just around the corner, I felt now would be the perfect time to get back into the swing of things.

Also, our guild is currently giving out Heroic-Archimonde runs to friends and family of the guild who have interest in the mount but may not raid. If you are reading this, consider yourself a friend of this writer and would like your very own moose, hit me up!

Gauntlet Slayer Edition
Continuing my streak of exploring additional games during the Warcraft content lull, I dove back into Gauntlet over the weekend. I say "dove back" because I purchased the game when it originally launched and was left quite disappointed. However, since I last logged in, the developer has made a string of improvements to the game, including cosmetic and power items, as well as a more straight-forward and understandable progression. It's a fun little dungeon crawler, and just as it was back in the day, even more fun when played with friends.

Guild Meetup Colorado Edition
In just less than a month and a half I'll be heading out to Colorado for the second (potentially annual) Sapere Aude guild meetup. We I don't have many plans besides hanging, drinking, warming my bones next to a campfire under the night sky, and visiting the Ren Faire on the Saturday of our trip. I'd like to hit a dispensary too just for the experience, but I may not be able to fit that in to due time restraints and lack of guildie interest.