Farming Player Housing decor components could become streamlined in Midnight with Essence of Lumber

A recently added currency on the Midnight beta will seemingly allow players to accelerate their lumber-harvesting efforts in order to craft more Player Housing decor items. While the currency itself isn’t available yet, the details that we do know allow for speculation and optimism for those of us who have already grown weary of flying from tree to tree in search of golden axes.

Essence of Lumber is the new currency, which is a mote of magical energy obtained from harvesting lumber. No word yet on which types of lumber can also yield essences, although “all of them” seems to be a safe bet. The maximum stack is 50, and we have no idea how common or rare these will be.

The only other detail we have right now also comes from the datamined tooltip, and that is the purpose of the currency: “Used to requisition additional materials from your neighborhood lumberjack.” Your neighborhood lumberjack, presumably, is the same NPC that currently offers each of your characters the all-important Havesting Hatchet and can convert Olemba Lumber to the missing Shadowmoon Lumber. You can find Lestia Goldenstrike in the town square of Founder’s Point near Housing upgrade NPC Jorvan Longmoor, and Xiz’ro under a tree in the center of Razorwind Shores.

The rest of the tooltip could mean several things. A ‘requisition’ is sort of like a purchase order, and is often seen in repeatable World of Warcraft quests. It suggests that we’ll be able to exchange our farmed essences for something…but what exactly?

The most obvious answer is more lumber. Perhaps you’ll be able to zip around the Dragon Isles collecting Dragonpine Lumber and use the essences collected to purchase the last few bundles of Arden Lumber you need to make that Veil-Secured Animacone. Knowing that our neighborhood lumberjack is the go-between on this transaction makes me lean heavily towards this possibility.

The qualifier “materials” means that the exchange could be more open-ended. We know that we need a painstakingly wide variety of materials across all expansions and professions to craft all of the hot tubs and chandeliers that we need. While I consider it unlikely that you’ll be able to trade in an Essence of Lumber for an Arcanite Bar, I could easily see bundles of some of the less insane crafting materials like Legion’s Arkhana or The Burning Crusade’s various elemental Primal Motes.

What are you hoping to be able to buy with a little extra currency that will drop from lumber nodes in Midnight? We will keep you updated as we find out more on this important developing lumberjack ability.