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I got the 10-day free trial, made a guy, starting killing. Then I saw guys with yellow !'s above their head, clicked em. Oh, they give you quests, I've played a game like this before, I'll try it...

BOOM! addicted. Level 34 Gnome Mage. A few blues, did my first BG the other day. Had no idea what was going on, still don't. 14 honor points!

It's weird though, maybe someone else feels as I do. Sometimes I wanna play so bad, then I hop on and grind out 3 levels for hours and hours. Other times I have no desire to go on. It's almost like, you know you have some long ass runs ahead of you, and some frustrating grinding, so I'm stressing myself into not playing. O_o

Yeah, I got the 10-day free trial, played until I hit 20, realized that it wasn't letting me level above 20 (because of the trial), then went out and bought the Battlechest (with WoW, BC, and strategy guides for both).

I'm thinking about canceling it though, at least for now. I've been soloing up until now, and now that I'm level 51, it's starting to get a little boring. The one time I did an instance with other people, two of them kept getting the rest of us killed by charging in and pulling all these enemies. p*ssed me off. Plus, my internet connection is crap, so I can barely play half the time. I may push through so I can get to the BC content, though. We'll see.

If anybody is on Baelgun and wants to show me how fun it can be playing with other people, let me know!

Yeah, I got the 10-day free trial, played until I hit 20, realized that it wasn't letting me level above 20 (because of the trial), then went out and bought the Battlechest (with WoW, BC, and strategy guides for both).

I'm thinking about canceling it though, at least for now. I've been soloing up until now, and now that I'm level 51, it's starting to get a little boring. The one time I did an instance with other people, two of them kept getting the rest of us killed by charging in and pulling all these enemies. p*ssed me off. Plus, my internet connection is crap, so I can barely play half the time. I may push through so I can get to the BC content, though. We'll see.

If anybody is on Baelgun and wants to show me how fun it can be playing with other people, let me know!

kylejn you may get help and people will say you were with the wrong people or etc but in reality it like that for all because I am learning throughout the game they say all they are different but in reality they say the same thing and do the same thing sooner or later and they turn on you and etc.The trick to this is really play the games with real firends like in real life and ones that wont turn on you or get upset if you not playing well or ones that get nasty or rude on vent ot ts or they turn on you if you accidently loot a epic by accident.Remeber wow may be the number one mmo in the world but in reality in the USA it has the lowest number of people playing it most of its players are from china and korea and etc.

kylejn you may get help and people will say you were with the wrong people or etc but in reality it like that for all because I am learning throughout the game they say all they are different but in reality they say the same thing and do the same thing sooner or later and they turn on you and etc.The trick to this is really play the games with real firends like in real life and ones that wont turn on you or get upset if you not playing well or ones that get nasty or rude on vent ot ts or they turn on you if you accidently loot a epic by accident.Remeber wow may be the number one mmo in the world but in reality in the USA it has the lowest number of people playing it most of its players are from china and korea and etc.

I dunno...there's no way to loot an epic on accident in my mind. Things should be made clear before looting starts, especially if you are pugging it. if you do it in your guild, each guild has (if they don't, they suck, period) their own rules for looting. If you don't follow them, you deserve to get bitched at - at the very least.

OT / I'd get back to work but I can't stop looking at that damn avatar that Spyder has...I'm hypnotized or something.

OT / I'd get back to work but I can't stop looking at that damn avatar that Spyder has...I'm hypnotized or something.

Haha, yeah, I'm in my political science class right now, saw the avatar, and was, like,

"Whoa... no! No! Not in class! I'll save you for later."

;) :laugh:

If you are starting out then try get a partnership with someone else going quickly, as the first 40ish levels are pretty dull imo. Try find a nice social guild for the chit chat so that you aren't questing in silence too. Shouldn't take long to get addicted to it though. Unfortunately now, the real fun starts 60+ as most guilds are now in the outlands doing the content there. So that means you will also need to get the Burning Crusade expeansion pack.

Levelling recently got buffed to make things faster, ie less xp needed and more xp given :)

Well I have a bunch of friends from school, and they've all played for quite a long time now and have several lvl 70 characters.

They claim to be able to "power level" me....But honestly I have no idea how that's supposed to make things faster.

Is gear hard to get? Does the game revolve around having a lot of gear in order to have fun?

Cause I've played D2 and if anyone else has played that the game pretty much revolves around what gear you can get.

The one time I did an instance with other people, two of them kept getting the rest of us killed by charging in and pulling all these enemies. p*ssed me off.

Clearing trash to Gorefiend last night we wiped half a dozen times because people just didn't understand "don't stand on the stairs", "Beware the invisible guys", "Kill the star first", "don't pull around the corner with multishot", etc. Even people you know are good have off-days from time to time.

se I am learning throughout the game they say all they are different but in reality they say the same thing and do the same thing sooner or later and they turn on you and etc.

I'm sorry you've found that, I can't say my experiences with guilds has been so negative.

I dunno...there's no way to loot an epic on accident in my mind. Things should be made clear before looting starts, especially if you are pugging it. if you do it in your guild, each guild has (if they don't, they suck, period) their own rules for looting. If you don't follow them, you deserve to get bitched at - at the very least.

We usually run with free-for-all loot so loot screw ups happen roughly once a month. I trust everyone I raid with not to try and screw me and I think that even the most bitter pug or newest recruit understands that 2-3 pieces of Tier 6 aren't worth trading their raid-career on the server for. Giving a guild-member hell for a rare mistake isn't fun for anybody and it does very little to address the problem.

Every so often something 'screwy' happens but usually it's a not important enough to matter in the long run. We finally got Bloodboils staff to drop and I lost it to another priest that unintentionally rolled. Sure it'd be an upgrade, but it still went to a good player and it's not like loot is in short supply so nobody gets too worked up about it. In the rare case something goes really wrong and (ie: shaman getting plate) and we care enough to fix it: a GM ticket can usually fix that in less than a day.

Is gear hard to get? Does the game revolve around having a lot of gear in order to have fun?

The welfare epics situation means you can have gear on-par or better than the average player even if you only play a few hours a week. You can't compete at the highest levels of PVE and PVP but there's still plenty to do even in "freshly minted 70" gear.

For the most part, the gear you need to do something is obtained by doing it. If you like to PVP then you do battlegrounds and arena to get gear for it. If you like to raid: you go and raid for gear to do it.

If you like to do small-group content (5-10 people) then you can do that and get very good gear for that too.

A set of gear ideal for one roll isn't ideal for everything but good PVP gear is still somewhat useful in PVE and good raiding gear still somewhat valuable for PVP.

I dunno...there's no way to loot an epic on accident in my mind. Things should be made clear before looting starts, especially if you are pugging it. if you do it in your guild, each guild has (if they don't, they suck, period) their own rules for looting. If you don't follow them, you deserve to get bitched at - at the very least.

OT / I'd get back to work but I can't stop looking at that damn avatar that Spyder has...I'm hypnotized or something.

It can happen with boe not bop epics.Plus it can happen with the master looter to if they are in a raid.

Can anyone tell me about herbalism? I just got it, I'm level 34. Do I have to go back to where level 1's are and start picking flowers/plants there? Til I get my Herbalism up to my level? I got rid of tailoring and got it 'cause I am absolutely broke. A kid my level has 1500gold, I have about 12 gold, he said you make a ton of money selling what you get in AH.

Anyone?

Can anyone tell me about herbalism? I just got it, I'm level 34. Do I have to go back to where level 1's are and start picking flowers/plants there? Til I get my Herbalism up to my level? I got rid of tailoring and got it 'cause I am absolutely broke. A kid my level has 1500gold, I have about 12 gold, he said you make a ton of money selling what you get in AH.

Anyone?

usually yes or go to AH

usually yes or go to AH

Read the question plix.

Can anyone tell me about herbalism? I just got it, I'm level 34. Do I have to go back to where level 1's are and start picking flowers/plants there? Til I get my Herbalism up to my level?

Yep. Pain in the arse I know, I had to do it from 20-300. Took me two solid days of work.

I got rid of tailoring and got it 'cause I am absolutely broke. A kid my level has 1500gold, I have about 12 gold, he said you make a ton of money selling what you get in AH.

How do I put this mildly... He's bull****ting you.

No way a level 34 gets 1500g. He's either buying gold or has a main. But the best pure profit professions are either Herbalism (everyone needs pots) & Leatherworking/Mining (check your server AH). At your level if your server is a few years old, as is mine, then you won't have much at level 31 which will be use to anyone.

No way a level 34 gets 1500g. He's either buying gold or has a main. But the best pure profit professions are either Herbalism (everyone needs pots) & Leatherworking/Mining (check your server AH). At your level if your server is a few years old, as is mine, then you won't have much at level 31 which will be use to anyone.

Yes way. I managed 500G at 30 my first toon, had other guildie on there first toon that by 35 had 2000G plus. They just played the AH and slowly, slowly, slowly leveled. They played the AH alot. Read up on the raids and what was needed found it cheap on AH turn around and sold it, etc. etc. It's possible, not likely or entierly popular but it can/does happen.

Yeah I had to get a new UI after my harddrives crashed and I lost all my data... (and before you say anything I did have backups... but the backup drive crashed also >_<)

Anyway, here's my new UI...

post-28825-1203888040_thumb.jpg

(Note: I'm actually resto. I just spec Elemental to have some fun on the weekends. I promise my resto gear is alot better ;) )

What raid frames addon are you using? They look clean and simple.

Read the question plix.

Yep. Pain in the arse I know, I had to do it from 20-300. Took me two solid days of work.

How do I put this mildly... He's bull****ting you.

No way a level 34 gets 1500g. He's either buying gold or has a main. But the best pure profit professions are either Herbalism (everyone needs pots) & Leatherworking/Mining (check your server AH). At your level if your server is a few years old, as is mine, then you won't have much at level 31 which will be use to anyone.

Well he said he made 6 of these black dresses for the Valentines Day event. He found a way to make a new character, and transfer/mail something to himself and keep making them. Sold them for a bundle on AH. He was also making something, I forget, and selling them. But the dresses (or w/e he called them) made him his money apparently. He's married and pretty mature, I doubt he's lying.

About herbalism, your saying it's well worth it to go back and build it up? Do you really make a lot of gold? And is it slow making money or fairly quick? (i know different people on different servers, in general i mean).

Well he said he made 6 of these black dresses for the Valentines Day event. He found a way to make a new character, and transfer/mail something to himself and keep making them. Sold them for a bundle on AH. He was also making something, I forget, and selling them. But the dresses (or w/e he called them) made him his money apparently. He's married and pretty mature, I doubt he's lying.

About herbalism, your saying it's well worth it to go back and build it up? Do you really make a lot of gold? And is it slow making money or fairly quick? (i know different people on different servers, in general i mean).

Herbalism is good for making money, not as good as mining but it's a less competitive market IMO. You should have the patience to stop and farm everything you see and once you hit 58 and head to Outland you can sell the stuff you gather for some good gold (especially the primals you start making). Since it's a gathering profession you won't spend a copper leveling it. That's the best reason at your level and experience to keep herbalism.

What addons are you running there?

Grid for Raidframes, more ideal for healing I guess, but as I often have to respec I use them all the time.

Omen - Threat Monitor

Recount - Damage Meters

Bartender3 - Action Bars

Elkanos Buffbars - Buff Bars

Decursive - removing poisons/disease etc

ag_Unitframes - Unit Frames

Outfitter - Essential for any class that needs more than one gear set. Instantly equips the items to each gear set. I currently have 5 setups on it Being Ele PVE/Ele PVP/Resto PVE/Resto PVP and Kiting.

Up the top is fubar with various plugins like performance/gold/whispers etc etc

Well he said he made 6 of these black dresses for the Valentines Day event. He found a way to make a new character, and transfer/mail something to himself and keep making them. Sold them for a bundle on AH. He was also making something, I forget, and selling them. But the dresses (or w/e he called them) made him his money apparently. He's married and pretty mature, I doubt he's lying.

About herbalism, your saying it's well worth it to go back and build it up? Do you really make a lot of gold? And is it slow making money or fairly quick? (i know different people on different servers, in general i mean).

what he may be talking about is the gift of a black dress that you got from Valentines day quest where you get a package with the dress in it. i know some people payed alot of cash for the dress as it was quite rare, not overly rare but meant doing the quest once very hour until you got it, basically rare enough for some people to pay silly prices for them. if you had 6

Anyway what he probably meant by "working out a way to make a new character and transfer mail" was that if you opened the gift but didnt take the dress out you could still pass the boxed gift on to someone else, i also think the black dress was a gray item so could be put on the AH.

so essentially this could be done but it does not sound like the workings of someone who was new to the game and didn't have at least one alt somewhere.

as for making gold from herbalism. you wont really get that going on until you are high enough in herbalism to pick quality herbs and high enough level to reach those herbs. unless you play the market on AH which in itslef usually requires an initial pool of money.

I got lucky with a staff of jordan, taskmaster axe, and shadowfang while leveling - I was over 1,000g after buying my mount.

Dunno about your server but they won't even fetch 100g. Our server is 3 years old though.

Read up on the raids and what was needed found it cheap on AH turn around and sold it, etc. etc. It's possible, not likely or entierly popular but it can/does happen.

Not going to happen any more with TBC being almost exclusive unto it's self (Primals etc). To get lucky would just be a waste of time and effort you could spend on getting to 70 imo.

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  • Posts

    • You literally have to do it on a desktop, which is incredibly annoying in our mobile-first world. What???
    • What part of "you can’t really depend on service providers to maintain features forever" is not clear enough?
    • Nope. That lack of surround sound capability (analog) won't fly with me. Sure, I use headphones most of the time, but still.
    • Creative Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe review: your headphones will love it by Steven Parker If you have been reading Neowin for any length of time, you may remember that I reviewed the Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro back in April. I found it to be an excellent budget sound card, even though it lacked support for formats such as DTS over the included SPDIF port. Anyway, Creative reached out to me again asking if I was interested in reviewing the Sound Blaster AE-X. It is a card mainly targeted at headphone wearers, which I'll get into a bit later. Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: Creative Labs provided a free sample without any review pre-approval. Here are the full specs of it: Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Dimensions: 179 x 126 x 18 mm Weight: 263g / 9.28 oz Platform: PCI-e DAC: ESS ES9039Q2M Connectivity Options Side: Rear: 1 x HD Audio Front Panel Connector, 1 x ⅛“ Headphone port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Left) port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Right) port, 1 x Coaxial SPDIF-out port, 1 x ⅛“ Mic in/Line-in port, 1 x TOSLINK SPDIF-in port Surround: No DNR / SNR: THD+N: 0.0001% Dynamic Range 130 dB Recording Resolution: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Direct Mode: Line Out (Stereo): PCM up to 32-bit  384 kHz Coaxial SPDIF Out: PCM up to 24-bit 192.0 kHz Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 384kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 Output Impedance: 1Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 8–600Ω, IEM: 0.5Vrms, Low: 1.5Vrms, Mid: 3Vrms, High: 6Vrms, Maximum output power: 350mW @ 32Ω (High), Maximum output voltage: 6Vrms (High) Front Panel Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128 Output Impedance: 10Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 32–300Ω, Maximum output power: 40mW @ 32Ω, Maximum output voltage: 1.9Vrms ASIO: ASIO 2.3 Total Harmonic Distortion: THD+N: 0.0006% Dynamic Range: 114 dB Scout Mode: Yes EMI shielding: No (but it passed all the FCC emission tests) Operating temperature: 0–45°C Input Power: 12V⎓0.5A Warranty: 1 Year (MSRP) Price: $179.99 / £169.99 The Sound Blaster AE-X was announced at the end of May, and it becomes clear that it is mainly for headphone wearers. I should also note that the card does not support DDL/DTS encoding technology, but it is said to support decoding through the coaxial SPDIF port. I was able to test this working with the classic Windows Sound properties, but I could not get a DTS (decode) signal through my Logitech Z906, it defaulted to 3D sound whenever I played DTS content through Plex or Emby. In addition, this card only supports two channels (stereo) over the speakers. The surround support is limited to the Headphone Amp, so before I get underway, what we have here is a card mostly intended for headphone use, especially with its SPDIF In (Toslink) port where you could connect another device like a console. So what about the highlights of this card? The AE-X is powered by the ESS SABRE DAC (ES9039Q2M), which is capable of a 130 dB dynamic range. In addition, it supports 32-bit/384 kHz playback for deeper detail and clarity. The headphone amplifier delivers up to 350 mW @ 32Ω, which admittedly far surpasses standard onboard audio, offering support for studio-grade headphones. DSD256 and ASIO 2.3 are also supported. What doesn't it have? No support for What-U-Hear, Super X-Fi, or the SmartComms Kit No EMI shielding, but it passed all the FCC emission tests (from the FAQ) I also want to make it clear that I am no audiophile. For me, it's purely subjective and it should just "work" out of the box. First impressions As I said in the introduction, I was a bit sad to see that the AE-X only supports stereo output, meaning it would not be on par with my ALC1220 over my speakers, as I mentioned it seems like this card is marketed toward headphone users. Since I am not an avid gamer that would rule me out as a potential customer, but I can still test its capabilities! The card arrived in a nice-looking box, as shown above. It's quite a bit larger than the Audify FX Pro that I reviewed back in April, and at first I thought the covering meant that it was EMI shielded, but it isn't as mentioned above in the highlights section. What's in the box: 1 x Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe card 1 x 3.5 mm CTIA TRRS to Dual TRS Headset Splitter Cable 1 x Quick Start Guide Aside from the Quick Start Guide, which someone at my age (I guess) needs a magnifying glass to read thanks to the tiny fonts, Creative Labs also has the manual online, which first requires you to prove that you're human in order to access it (so I can't direct link it). Anyway, the box is mostly made up of cardboard, and the only plastic in it is the anti-static bag for the card itself. Design Top Bottom The card itself looks pretty cool and actually wouldn't look out of place in an all-white build. There's only one connector, and for some reason it is awkwardly placed on the side (front-facing) that is for the front panel audio connector, which will let you use the headphones through the front PC audio jack. Since the front panel Headphone Amp has fewer capabilities than the rear headphone port, I decided not to use it. Rear of card PCI-e interface The rear of the card is completely open and is normally where you would find the front panel connector. The PCIe interface side is completely covered, which initially made me think it was EMI shielded. I/O panel Side (front-facing) with Front panel connector On the outer rear bracket side we have the TOSLINK SPDIF in, Coaxial SPDIF out, RCA line out (Right), RCA line out (Left), Headphone out, and Mic/Line in ports. On the front facing portion of the card itself is the F-panel connector. Usage Test System Our test system consists of the following: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER (BIOS F12) Corsair RM1000x (2024) Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut (33x33x0,2mm) 2x 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000MT/s CL36-38-38-80 T-Force Z540 2TB (PCIe Gen5) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition (NVIDIA) Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Windows 11 25H2 Pro I installed the card into the Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER which includes the RealTek ALC1220 onboard audio. For our subjective listening tests, I used the Coaxial SPDIF port to my Logitech Z906 speakers. For headphone tests I used the OneOdio Studio Max 2 Wireless DJ Headphones that I reviewed last month. After installing the audio driver, I installed Creative Nexus, which is a relatively new app designed for the latest Sound Blaster cards. Then I discovered the AE-X needed both a driver update from 1.00.15.0001 to 1.01.09.000 and a firmware update from 1.00.06.0000 to 1.00.06.0002, then I was set to go. It should be noted that the card did not work without the driver (not Plug and Play). As you can see above, you can manage the firmware, driver, and inputs via Advanced Settings on the Device tab. By default Nexus enabled "Direct Mode". Upon clicking on Acoustic Engine, the Equalizer can be enabled and set to four different presets, which are: Gaming Music Movies Footsteps Enhancer There's also a dedicated Scout Mode for gamers. I mainly used Tidal and Spotify in the past week to listen to some of my Liked Songs (which now total over 700) in Shuffle mode; there were no pops or interference that I could hear. I also found a 5.1 Surround Music playlist on Tidal that sounded really great over Studio Max 2 headphones. When I reviewed the Audigy FX Pro, I went out and purchased a Logitech Z906 set second-hand for €100 specifically to use with the card, but in this instance all I could get on the AE-X was the 3D output of surround sound through Coaxial SPDIF and although it still sounded great, it isn't quite as good as DTS Interactive via my onboard Realtek ALC1220. Conclusion So what have I learned? The AE-X lacks multi-channel support for 5.1/7.1 setups and drops support for modern surround technologies like Dolby or DTS, functioning strictly as a stereo output device. So to really benefit, you will need Studio-grade headphones to "hear" the benefits of this card. With that being said, I can imagine it will appeal to gamers who are switching between console and PC. By utilizing the SPDIF in port, you could just plug your headphones into the AE-X (front or rear port) and then switch between PC and Console without having to move the headphones to a different port. As I said in the Sound Blaster Audigy review, the EQ in the Creative Nexus app offers safe presets, which allows a user to further tweak the lows, mids, and highs for a personal listening experience. Of course it all depends on the headphones you hook up to it. Speaking of headphones, I kind of wish I had higher-quality Studio-grade headphones to really test this card with; I'm not usually wearing headphones in my day to day duties. The only time I will wear them is if I want to listen to music very late at night and I don't want to disturb my neighbors, so my rating (verdict) is based on this fact. Someone with a PC/Console setup and wears headphone religiously to game, and consume media will benefit much more than I from the high-quality Headphone Amps that are included in the AE-X. Once again, I do feel like Creative could have gone the extra mile to support the S/PDIF port a bit more. Why include it if you're not supporting the main popular digital formats? It seems like the decision was more of a legacy-based one, offering uncompressed 2-channel PCM audio, for users with high-fidelity audio systems and external DACs. Maybe I will be lucky enough to review a card that truly includes all these features in the future. I am sure readers with far more knowledge on audio systems than me will correct me in the comments below. I'll just say I am happy to learn what I don't know! Where to buy The Sound Blaster AE-X is available to purchase now in preorder for $179.99 on the U.S. Creative website, or for £169.99 on the Creative UK website and will start shipping to customers from June 25.
    • $80 or 90%, anything else would be financial suicide one way or another.
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