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There was a pretty big report put out by www.infodev.org concerning the conversion of the “virtual economy into development potential.” What that means in real-world speak is taking business opportunity from the online world and converting that into cold hard cash in the pocket. The report was written by a couple of PhDs, Dr. Lehdoncirta and Dr. Ernkvist who are too smart for us regular folks, but fear not! Months of Grad School work has bestowed upon me the ability to wade through the mountain of research data and extract the ore! Read on past the break to learn about gold farming and its impact upon the World of Warcraft. Read more…

There was a blue post by Bashiok:

We’re in the process of stepping up our detection and tracking to log and action players that are botting, or habitually AFKing in the Battlegrounds. We’ll be taking aggressive action and removing earned items, Honor Points, and ultimately suspending or even banning accounts of those that are found to be botting or habitually AFKing. It’s a sophisticated level of monitoring we’re undertaking. No one actively playing in the Battlegrounds normally should be concerned that they’ll be actioned.

I know that there are bots in WoW. I just have never seen one. Also, it is something that I don’t even want to look into, given that I have years invested into my account, and I don’t want to even take that chance in the name of research.

Read more…

Saw a great Blue Post by Daxxarri looking at the thinking behind I-level requirements and Heroic Dungeon difficulty.

He basically said:
Essentially, while you may have crossed the barrier that kept you from entering a heroic instance, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your character is quite ready for those encounters until you’ve accrued more gear. It might be easier to view the minimum item level as a way of preventing those who have little hope of success from queuing, rather than carte blanche for assured victory once you hit the threshold.

If you’re willing, you might find it beneficial to spend a little bit more time in regular dungeons, as well as acquiring reputation items or crafted gear, before you pass final judgment on whether healing is the right path for you in Cataclysm. After you’re wearing gear that’s a bit more appropriate to the challenge that the content presents, you might even find it fun.

Regardless, I hope you find the path that’s the most enjoyable for you.

This feels like an issue of messaging to me more than anything else.  Currently, players feel like they have reached an achievement and should receive a reward for their achievement when they have increased their Item Level to the point of accessing Heroics.  The issue occurs when players step into a heroic expecting a reward and get their faces ripped off.  DPS may be able to hide a little bit but any under geared Healers and Tanks will immediately feel the gear pinch when they enter a Heroic.

I actually enjoy the current difficulty of Heroics although it can often result in humiliation and anguish for undergeared players that are struggling to perform.  It certainly feels like the current state of Heroics is just an extension of the teaching initiative that Blizzard has been pursuing sincepatch 4.0.1 in WOTLK.  What are your thoughts on the current difficulty of Heroics?  Too challenging or just right?

Well, here comes another expansion… This one being my 3^rd, I decided what would be better than comparing experiences and feelings I had about the three, ever so different, expansions.  So let’s take a moment to reminisce about Vanilla Warcraft and Burning Crusade.  After that, we shall take a visit to adventures in Wrath of the Lich King, and finally I want to share what has happened so far in prep for Cataclysm.

Vanilla WoW to Burning Crusade

The original WoW will always be my favorite.  I have such fond memories from 40-man raids in AQ40.  Running NON-STOP battle grounds, praying I didn’t have to skip a day of PVP so my honor didn’t deteriorate from not getting as much as the week before;spamming the crap out of chat trying to get some kind of group together within an hour to run Deadmines.   I remember the forum wars between Alliance and Horde about how paladins and Shamans were over-powered, because one or the other couldn’t have them.  Then comes the release of BC, and with it a whole bunch more fun.  Two new races were introduced in the Blood Elves and Draenei, along with both sides getting the Paladin and Shaman classes.  Not to mention the ability to FLY!!!  This expansion found me sitting in line at midnight on release for maybe the nerdiest experience of my life.  I remember things throughout its life introduced in the patches like the daily quests that helped money flow and that horrible lag infestation that was voice chat.  Most important for me, at the time, was the arena and the new battlegrounds because I was huge into PVP during most of BC. Read more…

World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm by Christie Golden has perhaps the longest name of any WoW novel to date, and definitely the largest amount of colons. The Shattering tells the story of the events leading up to “the shattering,” the event where Deathwing emerges from Deepholm and causes mass destruction across Azeroth. This is the first time a WoW novel has been released to advance the story in preparation for an expansion (namely Cataclysm), and seeing the events of The Shattering occurring in parallel with in-game events is quite exciting.

The Shattering is the first of three novels describing the events of the Cataclysm. We learn about the politics of the Alliance and the Horde leading up to Cataclysm and how the Twilight’s Hammer cult and other evil organizations seek to cause havoc in preparation for Deathwing’s arrival. The story alternates between Horde and Alliance events, intertwining them at times when the events happen to overlap. Read more…

Woaw! 11 hours later we just got back to the hotel after day 1 of BlizzCon!

This is just a quick update to let you guys and girls know how things are going.

I can say Blizzard has really outdone themselves this year. All of the panels have been an absolute blast (especially the WoW Lore panel, although that could be me being  slightly biased) and when I say we got hold of some awesome lore details, I mean it. If you didn’t catch the Lore panel at Blizzcon or on the live stream, I’ll make sure to cover everything we heard on Lands of Lore.

In terms of breaking news, there wasn’t a whole bunch this year. Sadly the elusive mystery IP remains unknown, but theres always next year eh? What we did find out however was the last class that will be coming to Diablo 3, the Demon Hunter. Think Sylvanas but with dual wield crossbows, she kicks ass! If you’re at Blizzcon you can give her a whirl.

There is also a bunch of community mods for SC2 that are playable including a Peggle mod which rawks! Of course the latest version of the Cata Beta is playable and I get more and more excited the more I see of it. Apart from that, there are the guys from Razr here, Jinx, Richard. Knaak (who writes some of the WoW books) and TONS of other stuff. Read more…

With the release of patch 4.0.1, Blizzard finally let players travel at super-sonic speed without the need of a specific mount. Yes, for a measly 5k gold (not including faction discounts) you can obtain the ability to travel at 310% flying speed *woop*

The way the changes are working are:

• There are NO mounts with a 310% speed that drop.
• ALL mount speeds will be relative to your riding skill. (If Invincible drops and you have nothing higher than Expert riding, you will travel 150% speed)
• 310% speed is now obtained via Master riding, a new flying skill. All flying mounts are now only distinguished by aesthetics.

All in all this is a good change. Now everyone has the opportunity to travel at 310% speed, regardless of drop rates/limited play time.

But Wait! Read more…

For the past several nights we find ourselves sitting at our computers, staring at the of the new talents, glyphs, and spells that came with 4.0. Finally we spec into what we hope is going to provide the best of our class, glyph up, and equip our spells on our button bars. After spending some time at the target dummy and feeling a little more confident, you say to yourself “I got this!” Only to realize that you don’t got this.

At this point we have all managed to overcome the changes that Blizzard made to the game. Most of us have either been through a new patch and expansion, or at least have read or watched the countless Beta and PTR articles or videos that are around the Internet. The problem is, that no matter how much you read, watch, or experience in the past, you can never fully grasp just how much has changed with 4.0 until you log in and get your hands dirty. Read more…