Deciding to keep track of some accomplishments and goals. This thread is for just that.

About me:

• 5 Boxer
• GM of a capped 1000x person Guild
• Avid Collector of Mounts, TCG, Recipes, and Pets
• Author of: Mount Collecting--The Completionist Guide: http://www.wowhead.com/guide=1358/mount-collecting-the-completionist-guide

Current Goals I actively work on:

• Achieve 300 Mounts (at 288). (Get this with exalted on my horde toon in his guild and doing the horde Argent Tournament Dailies. Don't feel like doing this atm though. About a month ago I was ranked #27 in the world for mount count. Not bad out of 10million ppl. #1 on my server.)
• Collecting every recipe in the game for every profession. ( Decided to go beyond Enchant, Alch, Tailoring this month. Spent over 300k so far in recipes. It's coming along very well. Faction Rep on ALTS will be slowing point).
• Level all my alts to 90. I have 5x sets of every class minus rogue & warrior. All sets minus monk are 80. This is a constant pain in the ass.
• Get one of every legendary in the game (minus the fangs from cata. I hate rogues and will just keep my 70 rogue at 70 and get him the BT Blades)

Today's notes:

• Bought the Ony Mount on BMAH for 512k week1 of MoP See Here. Ran Onyia solo today for the first time since I bought it to get the head and then get a LW recipe. To my disbelief the Mount drops. WTF. Checked wowhead and yep--still .6% drop rate. figures.
• Ran my weekly Uld25 today and [Enchant Weapon - Blade Ward] FINALLY dropped in Uld25 for me today. Been after that forever. Enchanting now 100%.
• Some douchebag botter on neutral AH stealing. He got me for 8g. Another guy frap'd him buying dumb shit. Spoke to a GM today and he told me that ppl have already been on it. He'll be ban'd. Also went ahead and reported 38x other bots today on this server alone. I kept the GM tied up for awhile with me. God I hope I didn't report any of the guys I buy ore from though... lol
• I'm running ICC25, Uld25, & FL weekly for legendaries. My #2 being given the shards for Uld/ICC and I'm on last phase of FL staff quest. Should have staff done in about 8 weeks, start Uld25 in 2weeks, and ICC25 shards in about a month. I solo BT & SW for an alt hunter / rogue to receive legendaries. My Main mage already has, the MoP Gem, Sulfuras, SW Bow, and Thunderfury.
• Bought a lot of vendor recipes today for my alts. My counts are as below:
  • Enchanting 360/360 (Completed 100% on 1/12/13)
  • Tailoring 506/508 (99.61%) (Need WotLK Loremaster for Deathchill Cloak and a BOE [Recipe: Black Silk Pack])
  • Inscription552/556 (99.28%) (Need 3x Origami's, and Riguals of the New Moon. Haven't looked into any of these yet)
  • Alchemy 298/321 (92.83%)
  • Blacksmithing 445/517 (86.07%) (47x are Reputation and 25x Vendor))
  • Engineering 252/311 (81.03%) (1x Misc, 2x Mob Drop, 3x Rep, 22x Vendor, 14x World Event)
  • Leatherworking 507/642 (78.97%) (16x Misc, 8x Mob Drop, 66x Rep, 39x Vendor, 5x World Drop)
  • Jewelcrafting 526/848 (62.03%) (Just starting the WotLK & Cata Dailies. 100% Complete with the MoP)
  • Mining 525/600 (I have 2x toons at that and just use to smelt. I need to stop being lazy and lvl one to 600)
  • Herbalist 0/600 (Gathering is a waste of my time. Keep pushing this off)
  • Skinning 0/600 (Gathering is a waste of my time. Keep pushing this off)
• Not looking forward to lvling alts tomorrow. Pallys are at 84. Need them at least 85 to start up the legendary Uld/ICC quests when my #2 complete.

This post was edited by Stok3d on Jan 13 2013 12:10am

Week in Review:

• Ran Slabhide for the past 3x weekends--No Mount yet. I'm well over 100x runs so far
• Got the Legendary Gem for 4x of my guys this weekend. As my main already had it, I can now progress as a unit toward 6000x Valor for the next step on my mages. This will take me forever as I'm exalted in all MoP Daily factions (and no way in hell I'll be revisiting), don't need heroics or LFR for gear. Not sure where this valor will be coming from--5.2 maybe?
• My #2 got his Ulduar Legendary. I got my first token last run on my 85 pally.
• At around 100/250 for FL Legendary Staff quest Part 3. Hating these runs as leading these PUGs are always a pain. Can't wait to be done, but only doing it on FL10 Norm. At some point I may start soloing Alysrazor on my other 4x mages for the mount that has yet to drop
• Used up rest XP on 5x sets of toons simply running Slabhide this weekend.
• I'm Realizing I spend a ton of time on WoWhead weekly while at work. So much so that I feel I know everything there is to know of 5.2 and have left comments in probably 50x threads. I enjoy it though. Seems the WoW community is a better one than any of the other games I've played overall. There aren't nearly as many degenerates. I wonder if the monthly fee is a roadblock to the derelicts that poison threads in other games? There are always exceptions, but overall the community I've found better in WoW. (Heh, the ONE guy I've found as a waste of skin in d2jsp's WoW threads doesn't even have a paid subscription and plays a free server. This may prove my point.) Regardless, it's nice to be helpful, have the ability to update and maintain your guides / threads with manual edit, & feel appreciated for one's efforts.
• Decided to hunt for the Pandaria relics & treasures. I tracked down all the treasures last night and got the chieve "Riches of Pandaria". Managed to find one relic only--boa polearm.
• Really wanting the 8th slot for the guild. I may begin to proactively fill those last 4x spots for the chieves and offer out gold to entice.
• Deciding to make my updates here weekly ( unless I can't resist the temptation with some accomplishment )

This post was edited by Stok3d on Jan 21 2013 11:00am

Week in Review:

• Another weekend of Running Slabhide and another weekend without the drop. I wish my counter mod was account-wide so I know how many times I've done this. I'll need to add up the number on each of my mages for the number...
• Used up Rest XP on all my alts. Sounds lame, but it's a tall task pulling them through cata levels by just running slab over and over.
• Finally got the Firelands Meta by getting the barrel roll chieve. That was long overdue and a +1 to mount count
• Picked up a significant amount of recipes--including 7x removed from game (only didn't own one, but snagged them anyway)
• Discovered ToC recipes remain horde when brought to alliance from neutral AH. Need to wait until I find someone doing a faction change to help me out.
• Picked up around a dozen BOA blues from the Relics around Pandaria
• Helping an LS player get started in WoW even though he was a huge thorn in my side for a long time in the past. New atmosphere = New attitude ... I'm confident things will work out well with with this.
• 0 Valor
• Hit 15k views on guide and moved up to front page in rankings of all wowhead guides. Original Guide Submission 11/27/12

This post was edited by Stok3d on Jan 28 2013 02:39pm

Week in Review:

• All 5x of my mages have between 40-60x runs separately on Slabs. You'd think a mount made of rock would drop more...
• Got 8x guys to ding 85. Went to the green MoP vendor and bought full 372 gear for my pally's. They were only 161 :(. Spec'd them Ret, assigned glyphs etc, and started to quest. I hate gathering parts and almost gave up already 25% into lvl 85. Not sure how I'm going to level these guys. Going to get them all to 85 and then decide.
• Working with the site owner @ guildox . com and he's already implemented one of my ideas on Mount Rarity. Trying to get him to develop it further and am volunteering to take an active roll on his site. Seems doubtful if he wants to delegate me rights.
  Idea Request: http://www.guildox.com/wow/forum/thread/2082
  Idea Implementation: http://www.guildox.com/go/g.aspx?a=30&r=&w=&n=
• Found my name listed under Wowwiki for Bleeding Hollow. Made me smile to be recognized out of around 130,000 chars on this server.
• Found a BoE 476 Shoulder and bought a handful of Recipes I didn't own
• 0 Valor

This post was edited by Stok3d on Feb 5 2013 09:34am

Weeks in Review:

• 1x Set lvl 90, All Sets minus monks 85. Still need to level random 4x & monks as they're just lvl 25. 5x 90s, 32x lvl 85, 8x lvl 25, and a 76 horde mage.
• Killed Norm 'Will of the Emperor' for 5.2 FOS
• Killed Norm 'Grand Empress Shek'zeer' for 5.2 FOS
• Killed Norm 'Sha of Fear' for 5.2 FOS
• Killed Heroic 'Will of the Emperor' for 5.2 FOS
• 100% Inscription completed 2/8/13
• Decided to cap valor this week for the first time in months after word 5.2 doesn't reset valor
• Got 1st Sha Touched Staff on an alt. 1/5 mages now have it.
• All 5x of my BOA lvl 90 Int Staffs are now fully upgraded. 5.2 removes upgrading ability
• Completed LK Guild chieve and now got the guild upto 1920. Hoping to break 2k mark w/i the next two months.
• Been hoarding a bit for 5.2. I'll give specifics a month after 5.2 released.
• Still no luck on any mounts I farm (including the love rocket which I run 5x a day)

As I've had some heated discussions on basic statistics, I'm going to list out the formula here:


'Cumulative Probability' For Mount to Drop After # of Attempts:

y=1-((1-x)^n)

• y= Cumulative Probability
• x= Drop Chance
• n= # of Attempts

Example:
Love Rocket: 0.03% Drop
Attempts: 45 Characters daily during entire 15 day event

y=1-((1-.0003)^675)
y=0.183338329
y=18.3% Drop


Find # of Attempts to Reach Drop %:

n=(log(1-y)/log(1-x))

• y= Cumulative Probability
• x= Drop Chance
• n= # of Attempts

Say you want to find 50% chance of getting mount using Love Rocket example above:

n=(log(1-.5)/log(1-.0003))
n=2310.144011
n=2311 attempts

This post was edited by Stok3d on Feb 19 2013 11:08am

Weeks In Review:

• Well stocked for 5.2 starting tomorrow. Should come out a couple capped chars ahead.
• Finally capped my horde toon again. He took some big hits with the BMAH earlier in MoP and went dry a few times. It's nice to return to being capped on both sides.
• Killed Heroic 'Grand Empress Shekzeer' for 5.2 FOS
• Thori'dal, the Stars'Fury legendary drop on Hunter 2/20
• 1st Legendary Glaive Drop on my 70 Twink Rogue 3/4
• Next week I'm excited to get my Legendary staff from FL
• Got the guild a couple chieves and am prepping to hit the 2k chieve soon
• Hit exalted with the guild on my horde toon
• Rearranged a couple guilds. Finally got one with 7x tabs that holds nothing buy recipes.
• Continue working on Recipes. I have yet to grind dungeons, rep, vendors. I'm sitting well with the BOEs. My counts are as below (comparison vs 1/13):
  • Enchanting 360/360 (Completed 100% on 1/12/13)
  • Tailoring 507/508(+1) (99.8%) (Need WotLK Loremaster for Deathchill Cloak and just found my last BOE [Recipe: Black Silk Pack])
  • Inscription 556/556 (+4) (100%) (Completed 100% on 2/8/13)
  • Alchemy 306/321(+8) (95.33%)
  • Blacksmithing 460/529 (+15) (86.96%) (45x are Reputation and 24x Vendor))
  • Engineering 272/333 (+20) (81.68%) (1x Misc, 3x Rep, 3x Vendor, 55x Trainer)
  • Leatherworking 531/644 (+27) (82.45%) (13x Misc, 7x Mob Drop, 62x Rep, 29x Vendor, 2x World Drop)
  • Jewelcrafting 562/848 (+36) (66.27%) (Just starting the WotLK & Cata Dailies. 100% Complete with the MoP)
  • Mining 525/600 (I have 2x toons at that and just use to smelt. I need to stop being lazy and lvl one to 600)
  • Herbalist 0/600 (Gathering is a waste of my time. Keep pushing this off)
  • Skinning 0/600 (Gathering is a waste of my time. Keep pushing this off)

This post was edited by Stok3d on Mar 4 2013 11:40pm

5.2 Live Week in Review:

• Bought Flametalon of Alysrazor off BMAH for 279k
• Got my 9999x Bones for White Primal Raptor on 3/10
• Holding 5x [Primal Egg] which are all processing. Already hatched one and received a Black Raptor
• Currently ranked top user for the week & month for Wowhead
• Guide hit 35k views and became stickied on 3/9
• Bought lvl 25 Horde Guild with 7tabs for 25k.

Month in Review:

• Oondasta Drops His Mount!!!!!!!
• 3/30 Guide hits 50k views. 15k views since 3/9.
• Decided to work on Loremaster. Just got Eastern Kingdoms done
• Guild hit 2000 Point Chieve
• Main Raid Group going strong.
• Been working nights for nearly a month. Not much time to do much more than dailies, auctions, and some quests here and there for Loremaster

Well, this blog was short lived. It's time to hang my hat as I am retiring for a 2nd time. My first attempt at WoW took place in BC. I started in the beginning of the expansion and quit near the end of it. The second time I started in late Sept. 2011 and and am now quitting. I'll list out some of my achievements that I've done off the top of my head:

WoW Round 1 - Overview

• Started & Ended in BC
• Raided & Enjoyed PVP
• Created a second account to dominate AH on both factions and dual boxed mages
• Created a 49 Mage Twink named http://i634.photobucket.com/albums/uu64/Stok3d-Photos/WoWScrnShot_020308_020027.jpg. Was the best geared 49mage of any server in WoW and owned the 3rd pair of confirmed Spellshock Leggings ever. At that point in time, it was the rarest item in all of WoW. He also road on a spectral tiger--big deal back then as TCG mounts weren't BOE.
• Became the wealthiest player on low pop server Ysondre-US. Server sucked bad though.

WoW Round 2 - Overview

• Started up late Sept 2011 and quit May 2013. Played 1 2/3 years total
• Transferred my Mains to Bleeding Hollow-US. This High Pop-Even Ratio-PVP Server was phenominal. It was the #1 EST server for what I was looking for
• I created a few more accounts, got ISBoxer, and 5-Boxed. Primary characters were mages.
• Leveled 45x characters lvl 85+. I had 5x sets of all chars minus rogues & warriors. All the 45x characters also Max 600 Professions, 11x Embersilk Bags, Highest Flying Unlocked
• Got a handful of legendaries and had a 70 rogue twink fully geared (minus one glaive)
• Created a guild that became the largest on the server. Capped 1000 and maintained fresh members by gkicking any char that hadn't logged on in over a month.
• Guild had 2050 Chieve Points and was widely known as THE Mature place to game on the server
• Collected 234x mounts on alliance and 298x totaled both factions.
• Owned EVERY TCG, Blizzcon and Collector's Edition that Blizzard has ever sold. All of the mounts (minus spectral tiger) I attained through buying and selling w/i the game. The Blizzcon and CE's I attained from buying / selling ***. My best was buying a vanilla CE for $1000 and reselling for $3995 a few months later. Through all these efforts in this time span, I have over $10,000 total value in these items and I have no out-of-pocket expense. NOTHING!!!
• Even after buying all the TCG Mounts, spending 1.3mil on BMAH, Getting almost every recipe for every profession in game, and setting up over 45x toons with profs, bags, and all riding skills, I ended up with over 5million gold left over in the end..
• Sold 4.85million gold @ retirement. Trade1 - 3mil Gold & Trade2 - 1.875mil Gold I still have 100k on my chars in case I begin WoW again.
• GB full of 6 tabs of hard to find recipes. Over 1 mil in value that is still on the account
• Became well known in the WoW community for my wowhead guide and guildox contributions
• Handed over my guild, guildbank, and 1000x members to my #2 with strict stipulations to never sell the guild & to contact me if he ever quits.

Thoughts:
WoW started off fun & fresh. Not having played since BC, it was nice to get back into the game. I really began to miss it. Once resubbed, I instantly found that so much had also changed. Now there was a whole achievement system, mounts were learnable, all my old 49 twink gear had changed levels and was unusable now, and this new server I was on literally had over 10x the amount of people on it. It was exciting to solo through the old raids (by solo I mean 5box mages) and relive a lot of the memories I had from old. There was also an entire WotLK expansion I hadn't seen (not to mention the current Cata). I did find myself in a top raiding guild, but didn't agree with their behaviors so I decided to start my own. That too was a blast! I purposely started it fresh and did as many chieves as I could in it solo before inviting the first person. This guild was to be something I would be proud of--and it still is.

I found some niches and reaffirmed that making gold to be insanely easy while still being legit. I guesstimate that in the 20x months that I played, that w/o a doubt made over 10million in profits. I ended up with 5mil + a full GB of rare recipes and I know I spent well over 5mil on chars, mounts, chieve runs, etc. It's possible that I ended on this server as the wealthiest once again. However, this latest expansion really took it's toll on me. First off, the dailies were horrible. I hate questing and this began my downfall of the game feeling like "a job". It didn't help that I also began collecting all the recipes in the game and was trying to get all the mounts possible. This lead me to running various dungeons and quests daily to simply fulfill this OCD need. Couple this with spending maybe an hour a day on the AH and taking on a lot more responsibility in my RL job, the little gaming time I had left for the day was simply 'work' to do when I logged. WoW had completely lost it's enjoyment factor.

After a few months of this, I was getting totally burned out and happened to see an ad on MMO-champion of a game coming that fused my original gaming loves--MTG & Shandalar. The game is of course http://hextcg.com/. I first thought, OMG my prayers have been answered. They are FINALLY making a TCG - MMO Hybrid game. As I watched some videos and read through all the forums, I knew this is the game that I had been looking for. To make it even sweeter, they were doing some kickstarter thing and I had the opportunity to get in at it's infancy and get ahold of some lifelong perks. I went big and am proud to say that I'll even have my likeness on one of the Trading Cards in the game. As these past couple weeks have gone by, I haven't been able to think of anything else but this game. As a result and to liquidate current gaming assets, I sold out of WoW and cashed out of everything I had left in MTGO ($6400 worth including my Hoarded LED's. The money I raised from MTGO alone is going to pay for my Hex commitment and a 14day trip to Disney / Siesta Key with my entire family. So far it looks to be a 'Win'.

This leaves me to the current moment. I'm betting a lot on this new current game. So far, I really love the community and the theory behind the game looks amazing. I've been granted Alpha access when it becomes available & a dinner with the CEO of the company in August. Until then, I'm playing Shandalar that came out almost 20 years ago and am loving it.

Now for my next chapter in gaming to begin...