Darraxus the Warrior

The Luck of the Draw

2012-02-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

Good ole RNG. Man it can be a pain in the ass. This has been as apparent as ever for me recently with the Holliday boss dropping the Heart Shaped Box and my wife's Archaeology woes.

I am obviously doing the boss daily to try and get the pet and hopefully the mount. So far, I have acquired the pet....on my Paladin. I have also picked up the rose and the gas mask on my Shaman. GIVE ME STUFF ON MY MAIN!!!!

They should make the holliday pets that drop from the random bags account bound. That way you can choose which of your characters get it. You dont end up with the item you really wanted on your main sitting on a seldom used alt.

And archaeology. Dont even get me started on that one. My wife picked it up to get the pets....because she loves pets. She has all of them but one. The elusive "Creepy Crawly Hand" as we call it. This comes from Tol'Vir digs.

She has now solved over 150 tol'vir artifacts and 4 of the six rare ones. She has the mount already. It is driving her absolutely batty. I can understand why.

She has spent many days doing not much more than Archaeology for this one thing.....and it has still yet to drop. Very, very rough.

RNG is nice when it hits, but its a real bitch when it wants to be.

Weekend Update

2012-02-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

Well, this is suddenly going to be a busy week of WoW in some ways.

Both Darkmoon Faire and Love is In the Air started this weekend.

I will be running the holliday daily every day to have a chance at the pet and the rocket mount.

I will also be doing my Darkmoon dailies to pick up some shiny new pets and build on my rep.

I have already purchased the new Valentines day mount....off of the AH for 35k. My wife saw it and absolutely had to have it right this instance. I am sure I could get it for cheaper later, but I am absolutely positive that it was more than worth it. The look of joy she had riding around on her new "Flamingees" was priceless.

That was pretty much my weekend in gaming. Most of the rest of it was spent catching up on TV shows. How I Met Your Mother, SG-1, etc.

How was your weekend?

LFG is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2012-02-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

LFG has become a needed evil in WoW. You need it to get groups quickly and efficiently. It has also brought the douchebag phenomenon to a whole new level.

Back in the day, we had to walk 10 miles, uphill, in the Snow, with no shoes to get a group for instances. That sucked. A lot.

There were also great advantages to this method. You met people. If they were good, you put them on your friend list and would whisper them for future runs. This built up a team, and this is how I met a lot of my in-game friends.

Those days are mostly long gone.

Now, you get into a random instance, blitz it, and get on with your day.

People have free reign to be a dickhead, because if they are....who cares? Not like they are going to see these random people ever again.

Back in the day, your reputation meant something. If you were classifed as a BAD or a Ninja, you did not get groups. You either did not run anything, or you transfered servers. There was a price for being a douchebag.

Now there is not.

I think that they could add a couple of options to LFG to make it a little bit better.

1) Add and option for realm only LFG. Just a check box. If there are sufficient people on for this, then it throws you into an instance with people that are on your server. If not, it gives you a warning message and asks if you would like to join regular LFG.

2) Add a rating system for players. After a run, a screen pops up and it lets you rate each person in the group with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. There could also be a place to leave a comment. This would be a way to give someone contructive criticism as well as ensure that bad players get grouped with bads and vice versa. Maybe the rating system will group people of similar ratings.

These are just a couple of quick ideas off the top of my head. I do not miss waiting around to get a group. I do miss the friendships that were made and the accountability that people had to face if they acted like fucktards.

Chugging Along

2012-02-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

That is how it is going in WoW. Chugging along. Once again, I am mostly doing Auction House activities while waiting for this weekend's extravaganza of crap to do. Darkmoon Faire is on the same week that Love is In the Air starts. Which means not only do I have dailies to do, but I will need to run the Holliday boss daily to try and get the pets and mount drops.

My wife is back playing and driving herself crazy with Archaeology. She is trying to get the Hand pet from Tol'vir....with no success. She is at over 100 solves for Tol'vir without unlocking that little son of a bitch. That is ridiculous. With that many solves, she should have unlocked all of the rare ones already.

I am also thinking about rolling a new horde on a new server with my wife just for something else to do. Most likely it will be a bit higher population server. I am considering Earthen Ring.

Besides that, I have been watching SG-1 and How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. I am part way through season 2 on SG-1. Along with Battlestar Gallactica, I have wanted to continue watching SG-1 for years, but was unable to because I hate watching a serious in non sequential order.

So. That is what I have been doing. What about you?

Choice of F2P/Subscription model are the way to go.....

2012-01-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

for all future MMOs.

This is my opinion. You get people who want to pay a subscription because they want to really play the game and see everything it has to offer. You get others who want to check it out and maybe buy a thing here or there.

The problem with having just a sub based game is that it is often hard to justify paying 15 bucks a month for a game you only "kinda" like.

If you buy the box, I think that you should have an option of which way you want to play. I would probably continue to play SWTOR if it were free to play. I will not however pay monthly for it.

WoW on the other hand, I do not mind paying for. I like the game, and I think if there were a free to play model as well, I would still pay for the "premium" service.

The thing about having both is that it gives you a lot more options. People who dont want to pay a sub, can play. They can then get a sub later if they want to see additional content. Same goes for players who decide to cancel their sub. If they can come back and play and randomly buy items, it keeps a customer they would have lost otherwise.

I like F2P. I like subscription. I just think it is a better idea if games have both.

Hitting Instances

2012-01-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

Last night I hit all three of the new intances on my Paladin as DPS. The main reason was that my sister got a week pass for the game and has not seen the new instances and did not want to just muddle through.

So away we go. The first thing that happens? A wipe on trash in the first instance lol. We get in and some dps pulls a group of trash. We try to run away. The DPS leave the group to survive. The tank picks the trash up while we are across the map. Tank dies. We die. YAY! Great start.

The rest of everything went incredibly easy from there. We breezed through it with no issues.

The best part is that I think it took around and hour to do all three. Easy peasy.

It was also a nice little change of pace from the AH grind.

Why I have cancelled SWTOR

2012-01-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

First, I want to say that I do not hate the game. I dont love it either. I will go over my reasons why I decided to cancel, and there are a few. Keep in mind that the reasons are not in order of why I cancelled.

1) Poor Customer Service: I have never seen worse GMs. Ever. I put in a ticket a few days after early release. I have never gotten anything but a generic response about two weeks later. Really? This is how your GMs are going to work. By giving a generic we are looking into it and never following up. That is terrible.

2)System Requirements: I admit that I dont have a top of the line computer at this point. However, I am still able to play a lot of games with better graphics than TOR without nearly as many FPS issues. PvP is unplayable for me. Ilum is pretty rough as well. Load screens seem to take forever. This also means that my wife will be unable to play at all without significant upgrades.

3)You go from being the CEO of Microsoft to a dude in a cubicle: Basically, you are a complete badass in your storyline. You are saving the Empire. After that? You are just another fucking dude running around the Imperial fleet doing some inconsequential bullshit. MMOs can not have a game over. Finishing my story line feels like game over. The story was great, but I think that it hurt the end game for me.

4) Same quests over and over: There are not nearly enough paths to advance down. You always have to follow the same exact planet order. In middle of leveling some more character, I had a feeling of "whats the point". The class quests are only a small part of the quests. Everything else is the same thing.

5) No LFG or LFD: This was a pretty big one for me. I dont feel like sitting in the Imperial Fleet for hours at a time looking for Flashpoints. Then if you get into one and it falls apart, that is it. There is no signing up for another flashpoint. You have to hope that someone else is running something.

6) Too many fucking load screens: Seriously. WAY too many. As I mentioned before, load screens are fairly slow for me. So, I get a load screen to get onto my ship. A load screen to get off of my ship at an interplanetary space station, and a load screen to get onto the planet. Then the same thing all the way back to the fleet. Seriously. Too many load screens.

7) Everything is the same: All of the classes on both sides are exact mirrors. I know that they do it for balance, but it makes it a bit boring.

8) You get Pigeonholed: You have to pretty much choose light or dark side. Once you do, choosing the other option is detrimental to your chance to get cool items from light or dark side vendors. Not to mention that you want to play one way and your dumb ass companion doesnt like it.

9) Crappy Everything Interface: There are no mods. I am used to mods. I like making gold in WoW. I hate posting shit in TOR because the system is so clunky. It is time consuming, and usually pointless as many people do not even bother buying off of the galactic market.

I am sure that this is not everything, but it is a list that is long enough for me.

Overall, it is a decent game. I may come back at some point when they polish it up and add some of the features they need. Continuing the class story would also be important to me. I dont care if they even add levels. In fact I would prefer they not. TOR was a good RPG experience, but I found it severly lacking as an MMO.

Magic Rooster Egg

2012-01-23T11:47:00.001-08:00

My server is terrible for trading card mounts. I have seen a single spectral tiger in Cataclysm. It was going for just under a million gold. Lol, I think I will pass.

The Magic Rooster Egg has long been the mount that I wanted. I just love the ridiculousness of riding around on a large chicken.

Then, the other day, I finally saw one on the AH. You can bet I snapped that bad boy up with the quickness. 300k was well worth it.

Howdy!

2012-01-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

There have been a couple of things going on in the World of Warcraft for me.

First thing is that I have been trying to keep the gem market from sinking. There has been an idiot posting gems at about 1/3 the normal price....and even bigger idiots undercutting it. I guess it isnt all that bad since I have a large stock of cut gems now. Elementium Ore is still expensive and not a lot on the auction house. This means that I have not had an inferno ruby for quite some time.

I have been leveling my Rogue and Mage a bit as well. I got my mage from 78 to 81 pretty quickly. The faster leveling in Northrend is outstanding. The quests being inside the instances is even better. One instance would net me about half of a level. VERY NICE.

I got my Rogue to 73. I got into an Old Kingdom run with a huge douchebag of a healer. He was constantly spouting "GOGOGO" and pulling shit. The said something rude to our tank, who had done a good job, that pissed him off enough to pull the last boss and another mob and leave group.

Needless to say we died. I told the healer in my not so nice words, that he needs to work on his fucking manners and quit being such a douchebag.

I think he was a bit taken aback. I will purge these asshats from Azeroth as best I can. If you are going to be a dick for no reason, I will demolish you until you cry and quit or I get vote kicked.

Did something besides the Shuffle!

2012-01-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

Thats right. I actually did something that was non shuffle related, although I did do some shuffly stuff (mostly DEing crap_.

I ran a Wrath dungeon on my Rogue while watching Netflix. We got into the Nexus....first thing I noticed was that there were a bunch of quest gives at the entrance now. Pretty cool. This was a good change for Wrath content.

I think we were all pretty evenly matched on DPS despite me having zero AOE. That is a major disadvantage as a rogue at that level.

I also do not really care for Energy as I hate waiting for it to charge back up. Feels like it takes forever.

The good thing is that I can do this while semi AFK. I also noticed that significant experience spike. I think I gained close to half of a level in that instance. I had rested XP, but that is pretty significant.

Maybe leveling my toons under level 85 can be something to do to pass the time while I watch movies and shows on Netflix.

The Days of Meh

2012-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have been playing WoW a bit, and have not logged onto TOR at all. I am getting closer and closer to cancelling my subscription to TOR as the days go on. My wife will not be able to play it, so that is strike one. I dont really want to give up WoW so that is strike two.

On the WoW front, I have been doing Auction House stuff, which is boring, but it is something I can do while semi AFK and finally watching the rest of Battlestar Gallactice (a couple of episodes into the final season at this point). Did you know that Cylon number 6 also does the voice of Kerrigan in SC2? She must have been at the Blizzcon voice panel that went on when I was there, but I was not interested at all in SC2.

As far as gold goes, I am at more than 2.6 million currently. I cannot get enough ore to keep up with the shuffle at this point. I run out of inferno rubies on a daily basis. I suppose that is a decent problem to have.

Anyways, what have you been up to?

I am Shuffleupagus....

2012-01-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

I have actually been playing a bit more WoW than I have SW:TOR since I hit level 50 in TOR. I have been spending much of that time shuffling ore. It is a nice little activity to do while I watch television or music videos on Youtube.

I am now finally fully invested in TSM. I found out that my big problem with auto posting was not Auctioneer....it was QuickAuctions3, which I have used ever since it came out.

TSM can do so much more. I regret not doing it earlier. The auto mail feature alone makes everything so much easier. I can now mail uncommon gems to my DK and I can mail jewelry to DE to my Warlock with a single click of a button. AWESOME.

I still have some more ore to shuffle, and I am now dealing with a couple of new competitors in my gem market. I will try to force them out if I can.

I started to do a Heroic last night on my Druid just for shits and giggles. Got into Well of Eternity, and noticed that the tank was already dead....on the first mob.

So, we kill the mob (barely, thanks in part to the rogue not doing anything until the mob was already at half health). Then we move on the the first boss and take him down easily. Afterwards, I tell them hold on because I need to go get some water.

I am in Stormwind and I see that the tank dies....idiot. He leaves group. Shortly after, two of the DPS die. DOES ANYONE FUCKING PAY ATTENTION? One of the DPS left, and as it was getting late, I decided that I did not have time to deal with that kind of BS. No thank you.

Happy Belated New Years

2012-01-04T15:08:00.001-08:00

I have been a bit busy with SW:TOR, but I must say there is a lot of hope for WoW. I really enjoy ToR. Unfortunately, I am about .5 levels from cap and don't know what to do next. I cant PvP because it gets way too laggy to handle. I have finished my class quest line. Illum is too choppy to play. I dont feel like going through the long slog og leveling another character immediately after leveling this one.

All of this points back at WoW. I even played a tiny bit of WoW. I did some Darkmoon dailies on Darraxus and posted some auctions. I also bought a crap ton of ore that needs to be prospected.

I have enjoued SW:TOR, but do not know how long it will last. The stories are amazing. There are also a lot of annoying bugs, and with my lower end rig, the game does not run as well as it could.

WHY DO I DO IT???

2011-12-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

Good god. I originally typed good dog....lol. I bought over 200 stacks of elementium.....unfortunately, that means that I have to prospect all of that and then process it!

I spent three plus hours doing the shuffle on Saturday while watching football. I feel like I barely got anything done. I cut and vendored around 1000 zephyrite. I still have about 3k of the damn things. I should see if anyone wants to buy in bulk.

I have not been doing much in WoW thanks to the new Star Wars game, but I try to keep up with this....I am thinking about buying more guild bank tabs to store all of the crap.....and just vendoring all of the Zephyrite.

I will never have the time to turn all of those gems into jewelry and disenchant them.

I am considering spending this evening shuffling, but then I also want to play Star Wars.

Everyday I'm Shufflin'

2011-12-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Not a lot going on for me in WoW at the moment due to my playing TOR. However, I still need to shuffle.....a lot. I have so many stacks of uncommon gems that need to be turned into jewelry and disenchanted. I already have a ton of mails to disenchant. I have a little bit of ore to shuffle which means more of both.

Bah. Ore prices are still ridiculously high, which is fine I guess since inferno rubies are still ridiculous. When I have Inferno Rubies, they are selling for between 400-600 gold each. I just cringe at buying ore at 150 gold per stack. At least other gems sell pretty well.

I have not run any instances since TOR came out. I probably wont for quite some time. If TOR doesnt fit the loading screen issues, at least I know that I will have something to do.

Update

2011-12-20T09:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I have not been playing a ton of WoW lately, but I am still playing a bit.

It mostly consists of doing the Kaluak dailies for my wife and then doing some auction house things.

Today is the official open for SW:TOR, so I am considering skipping playing TOR today when all of the masses are going online.

I have had some serious issues with TOR that is making my game time almost unplayable. Check out Bloodofmandalore.blogspot.com
Today I may just catch up of processing shuffling materials. I need to prospect a bunch of ore, transmute some gems, create some jewelry and disenchant it. Not the most fun thing ever, but something that I can do while semi AFK.

New Blog: Bloodofmandalore.blogspot.com

2011-12-15T10:39:00.000-08:00

I will be creating a new blog to blog my exploits in SW:TOR to keep them seperate. I will still continue with this blog as well since I am currently still playing.

The new blog will be called Blood of Mandalore, which is also the name of out friends guild on our ToR server (although we initially spelled it wrong).

Balancing WoW and TOR

2011-12-14T10:13:00.001-08:00

Got my early invite for ToR today...which means I am going to have to balance ToR and WoW at the same time.

I plan on playing both. My WoW time will be cut back dramatically, but I would still like to run some Heroics for Valor points and I will certainly be doing my auction house thing.

I am hoping that the game is running a bit less choppy on my computer than it did in Beta.

I am going to be rolling a Bounty Hunter to start with.

Let the games begin.

Why has WoW lost subs? I have a reason for you.....

2011-12-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

Some of the player base are complete and utter asshats. People play at different levels. Some are hardcore raiders. Some are just casual players who like to run the occasional instance.

I got to see first hand why some people probably quit this game. People can be complete douchebags.

The other day, my wife, a buddy, and queued up for the new Heroics. My wife was bringing along her Paladin who had not been in them yet.

We get Sylvanas for the first boss. She has never done that fight before.

We end up wiping because the tank goes to a differnt ghoul than he said he would and we get exploded.

We run back in and the Warlock is complaining about my wife's and my friend's DPS. "You aren't even above the tank".

I reply...."Neither are you."

Then he goes on a rant linking a few of the blue items my wife is wearing. Last I checked, you do not need full epics to get into the instance.

He just kept going and going. Unforunately, the vote to kick was on cooldown because we had to kick a tank who DCed immediately after we zoned it.

It is not like they were doing terrible DPS. They were both doin between 12 and 13.5k DPS, which is more than enough for these instances.

The whole situation literally made my wife cry. In real life. This is the reason why I never had her do LFG instances. People can be douchebags. It was a new encounter, her gear and DPS was plenty sufficient, and some asshat decided that it was his mission to make someone feel like shit.

If it was real life, I would have punched the motherfucker in the mouth.

This is the reason why we cant have nice things. What if someone gets into their first ever instance...YAY!!!! Part way through, someone starts talking shit and saying nasty things to them despite there being no problems clearing the instance. That person may say...."Fuck it, Im going to play Skyrim". Not only do you lose a WoW player....you lose a potential future MMO player.

One of my buddies who is hardened to it had a situation that seemed somewhat similar. Tanking an instance on his 50 something warrior, a mage is running ahead and pulling mobs. He asks for the mage to stop. Mage continues to pull. Friend says "I hate impatient DPS who dont wait for the tank". The DPS replied "I hate slow ass tanks". My friend did what I would do. Vote to kick for being a douche. He was out and the instance goes on. Unfortunately, this kind of behaviour my spell the end for players who don't feel the need to be insulted by 15 year old boys who are alt tabbed playing CoD and calling people faggots.

WoW needs and occupy movement....Occupy asshats. Do not put up with them. Flex the vote kick.

Has capping valor points ever been this easy?

2011-12-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

Well, yes it has, but not since the days of Wrath.

The new Heroics are loot Pinatas and I love it. I have basically capped or will have capped my Warrior, Druid, Paladin, and Shaman as of today. I may work on some of the others this weekend.

I am having a great time. The instances are short and sweet, and there are worthwhile rewards.

I did a couple of regular Heroics on my Shaman to get of appropriate gear level for the new Heroics. The old ones took longer and in some cases were harded.

I am now rocking all kinds of shiny gear.

Everyone in our friends group is having a good time too. We have gotten the instances down to a science and take about 20 minutes per instance. And with the upgrades, our DPS continues to go up.

This is a win for a group such as ours. We have time to do a couple of Heroics in the evenings and get actual upgrades, rather than maybe finishing one and probably getting nothing.

Capping valor is easy....and I am glad for it.

With LFD now being something I do quite often, I have seen a few douchebags come out of the blue.

First was a DK tank. I was on my mostly blue geared ret paladin. We are doing End Time. While doing the Sylvanas encounter, we wipe. We ask if he can mark which target we are going to kill. He replies "Just hit what I am hitting...its not hard". He refuses to mark the target. I can tell this guy is a major douchebag.

Then we get the Baine encounter. We take it down and the two handed axe drops. Mr DK tank types "THAT IS MINE". I roll need and win it. He proceeds to call me a blue geared retard or some such and leave group. Since when are you entitled to loot? Oh, since never, that is when.

The next one was a priest healer with Pwn in his name. First, he was letting people die on bosses while he still had basically a full mana bar. I was constantly sitting at 30 percent health with him rocking a full mana bar. After the Tyrande fight in End Time, he says "Would help if you interrupted the Star thing."

To which I replied "We interrupted every one of those except for the last one you dipshit". I linked the recount showing a total of 10 interrupts. He didn't say shit.

After we killed the last boss, he says "Have fun at school tomorrow" and leaves group. Someone with pwn in their name and not paying attention accused us of being the little kids.

Mostly LFD has been good, but the asshats are out there as well.

Family and Friends Group: First New Instance a Success.

2011-12-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

Last night we ran a regular heroic, then decided to give the new heroics a go with our group. Our DPS is lower than the average pug, but we have people who are generally pretty good at

1) Not standing in bad
2) Interrupting bad
3) Using CC when it is needed

We go into the instance, and the first Echo we get is Tyrande. We clear all of the trash with no problem. We get to Tyrande and get her down quite a bit before we wipe. I believe we took her down on the next attempt....with just our ret paladin still standing. Keep in mind that for two of us, this was the first time in the instance, and one was in there healing for the first time.

Next up we got Echo of Baine. I think that it took us three tries to take him down, and at least two of the tries, we had very unlucky experiences with the totems ending up in the lava.

We had a bit of trouble of Murond, but took him down on the third or 4th try....which was not that bad considering that on the first attempt we ran out of hour glasses and only got him half dead.

My wife on her Boomkin ended up on hour glass duty. Unfortunately, she did not get to spend much time DPSing as she was too busy dodging yellow crap. For some reason it gravitated to her. Melee barely had to move. She was running for her life all night.

Overall, I was very happy with completing it. I also thing that the first instance is the hardest of the three, so we are looking forward to the next two.

The New Heroics......they are FUN! (Darkmoon Faire too!)

2011-12-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

As the title says, I got to play all of the new instances this weekend, and I must say....FUCK YEAH.

This is what I like in an instance. They don't take forever. I think I did all three in succession in about the same ammount of time to clear a troll instance. There are legit upgrades in them. I finally got some epic shoulders on my Warrior, which was all that was holding me back from getting Cataclysmically epic. There is an interesting story. It was pretty awesome to fight alongside Illidan and see some of those lore figures.

Auction House news....Holy crap I am selling a lot of gems and enchants. The new instances means more upgrades which means more people buying consumables. I made 50k on both Saturday and Sunday. The only problem, as Illidan would put it was, I WAS NOT PREPARED!!!! Red gems have been selling between 300-500 gold and I have had to buy stacks of ore for 150 plus a stack. What a pain in my ass.

The third big thing for the weekend was the Darkmoon Faire. We went right after it opened on midnight and did all of the dailies before the reset. I must say that I liked this...alot. The dailies are short and fun circus games. No problems. I LOVED the profession quests. Really a great opportunity to get 5 points in your profession if they are not maxed out yet.

The only daily that really annoyed me was the cannon. Mostly because of the fact that I had to run back to the cannon every time. Pro-tip. There is a gnome wearing green next to the water. He will teleport you back for 30 silver. Facepalm.

I have yet to pick up any of the random Darkmoon Faire quest items that you can turn in for rep and tickets. The cheapest ones on the AH are sitting at 1500 gold each. I do not want to pay that much.

My wife was on a pet kick this weekend as she is trying to get to 150 (think she made it to 146). She got the Clockwork bot form the Gnome guy (no idea why she did not have it already), the Black Tabby Cat (I footed half of the bill which was much too expensive), and a friend bought her Lil KT. She got the Fox kit after a few hours of farming (and skinning the mobs). This is her new favorite pet I think. Then we did the quest chain that leads up to ZG to get the little raptor pet. We killed the first boss and then moved on to Mandokir where we killed him in one shot and got the pet. Then we killed the Archaeology boss and kept moving forward. On the way there, my wife died several times in the spouting tiki faces. Much hilarity ensued.

We had a wipe on the whirlwinding mobs inside the temple and went back. We almost wiped once again. The only two remaining were our Rogue and my wife on her Boomkin. She books it for the exit. Rogue dies and the chase is on. She get thru the fire spouts without dying, and about 5 minutes runs out of the instance. We were cracking up the entire time. Unfortunately for our group, I was the only one who got to see it as we were sitting next to each other.

All in all, a great weekend of fun with my wife and friends.

Heroic Night

2011-12-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

Last night, we got out friend group together to run some random Heroics. I was of course tanking on Darraxus. Our group also consisted of a Boomkin, Resto Druid, Elemental Shaman, and Ret Paladin.

The first instance we got into was the Lost City of Tol'vir. I noticed immediately that I seemed to have gotten a significant DPS buff on my Prot Warrior. I did something like 23k DPS on the first trash pack and ended up at around 12k for the entire instance.

This instance actually went very well. I don't think we lost a single person on any of the bosses. Our group is generally not the highest DPS around (everyone is generally under 10k overall DPS), but everyone knows how to stay out of bad and interrupt bad spells.

Aferwards, we decided to head into another one. And we got Zul'Gurub. I was a bit weary about doing it, but we decided to give it a go. We wiped on the first boss as I expected we would. I think that I was the only one in the group to ever complete the instance. We ended up taking the boss down on the second try I think. It was all about staying out of green goo.

Then we moved along and got a little bit lost. We eneded up taking out a couple of the quest mobs we needed then went and took on the optional Archaeology boss. We got the guy that does a lighting charge thing. We took him down in one shot.

Then we headed over to the Blood Lord Mandokir or whatever his name was. We ended up taking him down on the first try despite the newness of the group to the instance. After that we decided that we were going to give the last boss a go. I did not go too wonderfully. On the first pull, we died in the first phase. We were not staying in the bubbles long enough.

On the second attempt, we made it to the second phase, but did not know to pull the big troll dude up to break the spirit chains.

On the third attempt, we did get him up there, but our healer was basically OOM at that point and we wiped again. We decided not to continue with the instance, but it was very encouraging for me. Once again, our DPS was not spectacular, but our group showed the ability to adapt and overcome.

I forsee more Heroics on the Horizon.

Decisions, Decisions.

2011-12-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

It is hard to decide what to do. First, I really want to run the new Heroics. Unfortunately, I dont think that will be possible with our group of friends. Second, I wasnt to just run some Heroics for Valor and Justice points. Third, I want to run old raids to get some transmog gear.

Last night, we decided to go with the third option. We went to the Hyjal raid, and everything went well for the most part. We were defeated by the glitch boss on the way from the Alliance camp to the Horde camp. While going over a bridge, it would show a loading screen and then we were suddenly plummeting from the cliff. Not fun.

The only other issue we had was that we did not pick up our Tears of the Goddess before facing Archimonde the first time. We ended up wiping because of the air bursts, but came back and killed him on the next go.

I did not pick up any transmog gear, but I did get the achievement. I had done the first several bosses in BC, but we never got Archimonde down during that time.

In other news, I made about 65k in sales last night and am officially out of inferno rubies. That is over 100k in the first two days of the patch for someone that did not stockpile at all.

I really need to get some more ore to prospect.

I think that this evening, we will run some Heroics. And sometime soon, I think I will teach my wife to heal on her Druid.

Also, Deathwing is already dead on my realm. We are not really an amazing raiding realm. What a joke. And I cant even watch the damn cutscene yet.

4.3 First Impressions

2011-11-30T08:51:00.000-08:00

What can I say, I did not do all that much!

First priority was selling crap on the AH. I was not nearly as stocked up as many of those Goblins out there, but still managed to make 40k on the first day without camping. Unfortunately auctioneer was broken so I ended up downloading Auctionator. I have decided that I like both for different reasons.

Oh yes, and of course there was Transmogrification. My Warrior had the most transmog gear, and I decided to go with the T5 set, rocking the Sun Eater and the shield from Malygos. I still need to get the Bulwark of Azzinoth.

On my Paladin, I ended up using the pieces of T2 that I had (I am missing the pants and helmets) as well as the purple version of the T2 helmet. I am rocking a shield and main hand weapon from BWL. The sword looks bad ass.

On my Warlock, I had thrown out most of my crap, but I did have a T6 helmet and a T5 shoulder piece (the pvp equivalents) to transmog.

I then took my DK back thru the Deathgate to pick up my starting set from the vendor there. If you take the purple portal inside, he will be a big ass abomination on the left hand side of the round room (when you are facing the room). I went with the blue quality gear, except for the head. I went with the hood from when you are new as a DK.

Besides transmog, I spent some JP on Darraxus to get him a new tier chest. WOOHOO.

I did not get a chance to try out the new dungeons unfortunately, and I was not sure where the new quest line started.

I think that in the next couple of days, there will be many runs for JP as well as Transmog runs.

Let the fun begin.

4.3 Patch Notes (last PTR notes that MMO Champion had)

2011-11-29T07:09:00.000-08:00

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.3.0
General
New Dungeon & Raid Content
End Time is now available.
Hour of Twilight is now available.
Well of Eternity is now available.
The new Baradin Hold boss, Alizabal, is now available.
Dragon Soul is now available.
Raid Finder
This new grouping feature allows players to quickly and easily form a pick-up raid for a specially tuned version of the current tier of endgame content: the Dragon Soul raid. Raid Finder is now available.
Transmogrification
This new feature allows players to customize their gear like never before. You'll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar. The costs associated with this service are not yet final.
Void Storage
In addition to the bank, players will now have access to a new "deep storage" system, allowing characters to free bag space by setting aside coveted gear. You'll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar. The costs associated with this service are not yet final.
Reforging
The former Reforging vendors have been... retired. The ethereals have chosen to take over the business and joined their Transmogrification and Void Storage service providers. You'll find them in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar.
Outland & Northrend Quest Flow
The amount of experience needed to gain levels 71 through 80 has been reduced by approximately 33%.
Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.
Relevant questgivers have been moved into Outland and Northrend dungeons. The majority of dungeon quests for these zones are now available from within their respective dungeons.
North American realms (excluding Brazilian, Latin American, and Oceanic realms) no longer permit letters with accents in character or guild names. Existing character and guild names with special characters will be unaffected by this change.

Achievements
The achievement Master of Alterac Valley no longer requires the Alterac Valley Blitz achievement.
The achievement Tol Barad Veteran now requires 25 victories in Tol Barad, down from 100.

Classes: General
All raid and party buffs which grant group members 10% increased attack power have been changed slightly. They continue to provide 10% increased ranged attack power, but now provide 20% increased melee attack power.
Abomination's Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.
Blessing of Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.
Runescroll of Might: The melee attack power bonus from this consumable has been increased to 16%, up from 8%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 8%.
Trueshot Aura: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.
Unleashed Rage: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.
Vengeance for Protection warriors, Protection paladins, Blood death knights, and Feral druids has been redesigned slightly. It no longer ramps up slowly at the beginning of a fight. Instead, the first melee attack taken by the tank generates Vengeance equal to 33% of the damage taken by that attack. In addition, as it updates periodically during the fight, it's always set to at least 33% of the damage taken by the tank in the last 2 seconds. It still climbs from that point at the rate it did previously, still decays when damage is not taken, and still cannot exceed a maximum based on the health and Stamina of the tank.
Threat generated by classes in active tanking modes has been increased to 500% damage done, up from 300%. This applies to druids in Bear Form, death knights in Blood Presence, warriors in Defensive Stance, and paladins with Righteous Fury active.
Spells which have an effect broken by taking damage past a threshold (Entangling Roots, Fear, Frost Nova, etc.) now count damage that was prevented by damage absorbs or other damage reducing effects.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.
Blood Presence now provides an armor bonus of 55%, up from 30%.
Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.

Blood
Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.
Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.
Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.

Unholy
Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%.
The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Wrath has a new spell effect.
Hurricane has a new updated visual effect.
Swipe (Cat) has been reduced to 340% weapon damage, down from 415%.
Bear Form now provides an armor bonus of 120% at all levels, up from 65% for characters below level 40, making it easier for lower level druids to tank dungeons.
Bear Form now provides a Stamina bonus of 20%, up from 10%.

Balance
Celestial Focus now also reduces Cyclone spell pushback.

Restoration
Wild Growth healing has been reduced by 20%.
Nature’s Focus now also reduces Cyclone and Entangling Roots spell pushback.

Glyphs
Glyph of Shred has been renamed Glyph of Bloodletting, and now also causes Mangle (Cat) to extend the duration of Rip, in addition to its existing Shred functionality.
Glyph of Wild Growth now also increases the cooldown on Wild Growth by 2 seconds.

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Monstrous Bite now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Beast Mastery
Animal Handler now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.
Widow Venom now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
Burrow Attack now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
Froststorm Breath now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.

Survival
Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.

Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Pyroblast’s initial damage has been increased by approximately 26%, and its damage over time has been increased by approximately 100%.
Fireball damage has been increased by approximately 17%.

Fire
Living Bomb damage over time has been increased by approximately 10%, and explosion damage has been increased by approximately 120%.

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Holy Radiance now has a 3.0-second cast time, no cooldown, and requires a player target. That target is imbued with Holy Radiance, which heals them and all group members within 10 yards instantly, and continues to heal them by a smaller amount every 1 second for 3 seconds.
Seal of Insight, when Judged, no longer returns 15% base mana to the paladin. Judging Seal of Insight still causes damage, and melee attacks will still restore 4% of base mana.
Seal of Truth, when Judged, now benefits from a multiplier of 20% per stack of Censure, up from 10%.

Holy
Clarity of Purpose now also reduces the cast time of Holy Radiance.
Illuminated Healing (mastery) now also applies to Holy Radiance.
Infusion of Light now applies its cast time reduction from Holy Shock critical effects to Holy Radiance, in addition to its current effects.
In addition to providing haste, the effect from Judgements of the Pure now increases mana regeneration from Spirit by 10/20/30% for 60 seconds.
Light of Dawn now affects 6 targets (base effect), up from 5.
Paragon of Virtue now lowers the cooldown of Divine Protection by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20 seconds.
Speed of Light no longer triggers from Holy Radiance and no longer lowers the Holy Radiance cooldown. Speed of Light now only triggers from Divine Protection.
Tower of Radiance, in addition to its current effects, now also causes Holy Radiance to always generate 1 charge of Holy Power at all times.
Beacon of Light is triggered by Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light and Light of Dawn at 50% transference and Holy Light at 100% transference. It does not transfer Holy Radiance, Protector of the Innocent or other sources of healing.

Retribution
Sanctified Retribution now increases the critical hit chance of Hammer of Wrath by 2/4/6%, down from 20/40/60%.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (passive) now increases damage by 25%, up from 20%.

Glyphs
Glyph of Light of Dawn now lowers the number of targets to 4, instead of increasing targets to 6, but increases healing by 25%.

Priest (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Divine Hymn now affects 5 targets, up from 3.

Discipline
Atonement will now account for the target enemy's combat reach when calculating proper range, enabling it to be used on large creatures such as Ragnaros and Ala'kir.
Divine Aegis has a new spell effect.

Holy
Spirit of Redemption has been rebuilt to address a few functionality issues and make it more responsive. Spirit of Redemption otherwise remains unchanged.
State of Mind has been redesigned and is now called Heavenly Voice. Heavenly Voice increases the healing done by Divine Hymn by 50/100%, and reduces the cooldown of Divine Hymn by 2.5/5 minutes.
Guardian Spirit’s healing bonus has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.
Holy Word: Serenity now has a cooldown of 10 seconds, down from 15 seconds.

Glyphs
Glyph of Circle of Healing now also increases the mana cost of Circle of Healing by 20%.

Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Wound Poison now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Flametongue Weapon no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.
Lightning Bolt has a new spell effect.
Wind Shear’s base cooldown has been adjusted to 15 seconds, up from 6 seconds.

Elemental
Call of Flame no longer causes Fire Nova to extend the duration of Flame Shock.
Earthquake damage has been increased by roughly 75%.
Elemental Fury now removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.
Reverberation now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 5/10 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second.
Shamanism now increases the spell power benefit to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, and Chain Lightning by 36%, up from 32%.

Enhancement
Improved Lava Lash now causes Lava Lash to spread a Flame Shock debuff from the target to up to 4 nearby targets. This excludes crowd-controlled targets and those who already have a Flame Shock debuff from the shaman.
Improved Lava Lash no longer increases base Lava Lash damage by 15/30%. This increase has been rolled into the base Lava Lash skill.
Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources.
Maelstrom Weapon can now also proc from fully absorbed melee attacks.

Restoration
Ancestral Healing now also causes the shaman's heals to increase the target's maximum health by 5/10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of the target's maximum health, for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack if multiple Restoration shaman are present, and does not apply to heals from procs.
Riptide's periodic healing coefficient has been increased by 50%. The initial direct heal is unchanged.

Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Shadow Bolt has a new spell effect.
Soul Fire now scales with 72.6% of spell power, up from 62.5%.
The Voidwalker ability Suffering now works like the hunter pet talent Taunt.

Demonology
Master Demonologist now grants a base bonus of 18.4% and 2.3% per mastery, up from 16% and 2% per mastery.
Impending Doom is now also activated by Soul Fire.

Destruction
Fire and Brimstone now increases the damage of Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on Immolated targets by 5/10/15%, up from 2/4/6%.
Burning Embers now deals damage equal to 25/50% of Soul Fire and Imp’s Firebolt, up from 15/30%.
Buning Embers damage cap has been raised.
Shadowburn now deals Shadowflame damage, instead of Shadow damage.
Improved Soul Fire now lasts 20 sec, up from 15sec.

Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that caused Doomguard and Infernal to benefit dramatically more than intended from Demonology Mastery.

Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Charge (and related abilities) should now correctly path to a target even if the target moves during the Charge. This change should decrease the likelihood of the warrior Charging to a different location than the target.
Slam now uses a new character attack animation.
Colossus Smash now uses a new character attack animation.

Arms
Mortal Strike now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Fury
Dual Wield Specialization no longer increases Physical damage by 5%. It continues to increase off-hand attack damage by 25%.
Furious Attacks now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Dungeons & Raids
Dungeon Journal entries have been added for the new dungeons: End Time, Well of Eternity, Hour of Twilight, and Dragon Soul.
Players who use Dungeon Finder for a random Heroic dungeon will no longer be locked to that instance. Previously, players who entered an instance via the Random Dungeon option were then prohibited from queuing for that dungeon or entering the instance manually via the portal. Players should now always be able to complete a specific Heroic dungeon once per day regardless of any random dungeons completed.
Ruins of Ahn'qiraj
Bosses in Ruins of Ahn'qiraj now drop a rare-quality Scarab Coffer Key which can be used to open the Scarab Coffers found within. These keys are zone-bound to Ruins of Ahn'qiraj and have a 17-hour expiration. This change also applies to Greater Scarab Coffer Keys used to open Large Scarab Coffers.
Zul’Gurub
Players now only have to kill two of the four initial dungeon bosses (High Priest Venoxis, Broodlord Mandokir, High Priestess Kilnara, and Zanzil) to face Jin’do the Godbreaker.
Zul’Aman
Players now only have to kill two of the four Troll avatars before they may face Hex Lord Malacrass.

Guilds
Guild Standards are again useable in Firelands. Duration has been increased to 15 minutes, the effect has a 100 yard radius, and now affects dead players.

Items
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest: The chance for this item’s effect to be triggered has been reduced.

Races
The orc racial Blood Fury now increases spell power rather than only spell damage.

User Interface
Archaeology areas of interest will now show on the mini-map, in addition to the World Map.
Bag Search
A search field has been added to allow players to search bag, bank, guild bank, and Void Storage inventories for specific items.
Guilds with inactive guild leaders can now usurp the leader under specific conditions. More information on this coming soon.
The Reforging interface has been updated and improved.
Quest Tracking areas or points of interest will now show on the mini-map, in addition to the World Map.
The World Map now displays the expected character levels for each zone.
Added a “promote everyone” checkbox that will automatically make all raid members, Raid assistants. This checkbox can be found in the Raid Frame and the Unit Frame “pull-out” tab.
There are now commands for world markers & unit markers.
Added new rotation, zoom, and pan controls are now available in all windows with player models in UI frames.
Players can now unlearn profession specialization without unlearning the profession (Engineering & Alchemy).
[Mac] Added functionality to allow using the Command key instead of the Control key on Apple keyboards. This can be enabled in Mac Options.
[Mac] Added functionality to disable Mac OS system keyboard shortcuts so that they do not interfere with keyboard shortcuts in WoW. This can be enabled in Mac Options.
Added a feature to interact with NPCs, game objects (mailbox, mining nodes, etc.), and corpses on left-click as well as right-click. There is now an option under Interface:Controls to turn this feature off.

Weekend Update: Knights of the Old Republic Edition

2011-11-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend was mostly dedicated to testing TOR once again.

The first weekend I played, I was the Sith Warrior. This time I played the Smuggler and Bounty Hunter. If you don't want to hear anything about the game, please do not read past this point.

So far I am liking this game. Not loving it. Liking it. The best part of the game is the story. It is very well done, and the voice acting is very good. For some people, this may be one of the worst things because it takes forever to get through quests. I think I will break the game down by bullet points to make it look more officail :p

Classes: The classes on the Republic and Sith sides have a counterpart on either side. Sith Warrior= Jedi Knight etc. etc. There will be some visual differences, but they seemed to have mostly the same abilities. This makes sense as you don't want the sides to be horribly unbalanced.

Races: There are 4-5 races to choose for each class. From what I saw, they all seem to be variations of humanoid. I chose two humans and a Zabrak (Darth Maul) with the characters I created. They also have Grand Admiral Thrawn's race as a playable race. I think they will probably add more down the line.

Crafting: To be honest, I did not get much into the crafting thing. My friends did, but I did not. You can get your material for crafting either on your own (mob etc.) or you can pay your Companion to run off and do a quick mission to get you some materials. If you do not care to farm for materials, you will have to trade for them or pay your companion to get them. That said, I am not sure if there is an auction house or now. I never got a character above level 12.

Ok, so for some of my experiences. I did like the Sith Warrior. The class story line is good, and you get some cool abilities including an ability that is like Charge in WoW. I liked the Smuggler story line....I did not like the cover mechanic. Basically, you have to squat behind something or squat down to be able to use many of your abilities. Something is laggy with my computer on this game, so by the time I got into position, my friends had already killed all of the mobs. Annoying.

The third class I played was my favorite by far. Not only was the story very good, but class played awesome....the Bounty Hunter.

I originally planned on playing a Sith Warrior when the game came out. I am not leaning towards Bounty Hunter. They have some of the coolest attacks in the game that I have seen so far (along side Inquisitor force lighting). Not only do you have the standard blaster, but you get to use a wrist mounted rocket launcher and a flame thrower. Nothing is more fun that catching a group of bad guys on fire. You can even call in some artillery strikes or some such.

One of my favorite parts of questing is that you get to make choices. I have played both ways.....good and bad. It is fun either way, and I feel like it really lets you flesh out your character personality in your own mind. On my Bounty Hunter, I made every evil decision I could. I killed a kid in front of his Dad. I decapitated a guy and gave the head to his wife. There are so many choices with each quest.

Another neat thing about quests are when you are in a group of people. Each person chooses how they want to answer the quest question. There is a random roll, and one person's choice is the answer you use. Not to worry though, because if you choose a dark side answer and someone else chooses a Light Side answer, you will still get your darkside points regardless of the outcome.

The last thing I wanted to talk about are Flash Points (Instances). I only got to do the first one on Alliance side, but I really enjoyed it. The story that they add to the instance really makes it feel like you are doing something epic. It is not like WoW instances, where after you do the quests the first time, you are just in there for shits and giggles afterwards.

Overall, there are a lot of good things about the game. I will definately play at least one character to level cap in release. I just really need to upgrade my graphics card so that I can play.

In SW:TOR Beta this weekend

2011-11-23T11:05:00.001-08:00

I should get some quality play time in, so I should have a decent review for you on Monday. I will need to actually take some notes so that I do not forget things.

Weekend Update

2011-11-21T10:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend was a pretty good weekend in WoW for me. I helped the wifey with some Thanksgiving tasks, did some archaeology (my wife did a crap ton), and instances....lots of instances. These instances included doing some Heroics!

I have stated in the past that my wife was always hesitant to run heroics, but she has been more than willing to run them with our group of friends.

We got a group together (me on my Warrior tanking, wife on her Boomkin, sister on her new 85 mage, Bryce on his rogue, and Kev healing on his Druid).

We decided to go for random and got Heroic Shadowfang. Not only is this one of the more difficult regular Heroics, but three of our group had never done it before. It went much better than most of the groups I had run with before.

The first boss caused us one wipe. I figured most bosses are going to wipe us once as everyone sees what each boss did. We made it to the Dark Angel phase and ended up dying.

Next time around we took him down with no problems. Kev saved his Tree form for the Dark Angel phase and my wife threw out a Tranquility for good measure.

One thing I love about playing with my wife is that she is a great utility player. She does her job (DPS), but has saved our bacon a number of times with innervates and extra heals.

So, we moved on to the next boss, which we took down on the first try. We just burned the boss. I tanked the adds.

Then we moved along and got to Commander Springvale or whatever his name was. I had many pugs that got taken down on this boss. We ended up two shotting it after everyone got the hang of what was going on.

On to the poison boss and we took him down in two shots. Red light green light, no problem.

The last boss took three attempts, but only because we didnt really realize that we needed to interrupt the cursed bullet until the third try. He went down like a cheap whore after that.

We decided we were going to try and do Zul-Aman. We cleared to the Eagle boss....and it was not pretty. I think we got him down to about 30 percent on the best of out 3 tries. We just did not have enough DPS and out healer was running out of mana very quickly.

We decided to go back and do another regular Heroic and got the Throne of Winds or whatever it is called with Asaad at the end. We cleared through the first two bosses no problem without a wipe. On Asaad we had some major technical difficulties. First and foremost, we were having some issues with jumping on the static clings. The second issue was that he seemed to be targeting out healer for chain lighting nearly every time and blasting him for 70k.

It took us 4-5 tries, but we finally took him down. After that, it was time to call it a night.

Now, most of the people in our group don't have a large amount of experience with Heroics. We were still able to get through them. Most of this was because of teamwork. We communicated well and worked through the problems. The DPS in the group was fine. It was over 7k, but under 10k for everyone involved (though on boss fights most of the dps was over 10k). In PuGs, people are way to focused on DPS. DPS is just a way to make up for bad play. If you do what you are supposed to do, you can get through most instances with decent dps.

Anyways, that was my weekend. I am going to work on my review of ToR so far, and should post it sometime this week.

Would You Still Play WoW if None of Your Friends Did?

2011-11-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

I was just thinking about this. I enjoy WoW, but I REALLY just enjoy hanging out with friends and playing games.

WoW makes that very easy.

When I don't have any friends that are playing a game like WoW with me, I feel like I really lose something.

I like making gold.

I like doing instances.

I LOVE playing with people in an interactive world.

Many of my WoW friends have quit playing. I have stopped making new in-game friends. Much of this has to do with the Dungeon Finder. It was awesome in Wrath because all of my friends were still playing. Now, I find it lacking.

With the dungeon finder, there is not much reason to even find new people to play with.

I remember when getting into a guild happened through being a decent player and person when you ran a 5 man or raid with a group of people. Now, with Guild Perks, it is advantageous to have the biggest group possible. Not a small and tight nit group.

I am in a very good raiding guild. I have not raided at all in this expansion. I stayed because I like the guild perks.

The small family and friends guild that my best friends and wife are in is at just level 9. I have been contemplating switching toons over, but then it would feel like I lost some of what I worked for in the previous guild.

If my friends were not playing WoW at all.....I don't know that I would. Perhaps I would make new friends like I did back in the day. Or maybe not.

Star Wars is coming out, and I will be doing that for a bit. Then I am sure I will be playing WoW again when Pandaria comes out. I like content. I like people more.

A New Challenger has Risen

2011-11-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

For a while there, the gem "cartel" we had set up was working well. We were making tons of sales, and everyone was happy. Then another new person entered the market. They are on about 18 hours a day on weekends and during all peak hours on weekdays.

One of the guys who I had my "cartel" with is gone. I talked to the other one about the new competitor. This new guy posts one gem at a time, and almost instantly undercuts when you post. The other guy thought it was a bot after wathcing him for an hour go to the same spot near the mail box and in the same spot at the auction house.

I figured I would watch him. I also let him know that I was watching him. At first it looked like he may be botting. Then it seemed like he noticed me. And he ported to Dalaran. I followed him to Dalaran. He logged off. A minute later he logged back on and went back to Stormwind. I followed him and he went to the Dwarven District. When he noticed me, he went back to trade, then again to Dwarven. Then back to Dalaran. Then back to Stormwind. Finally he went to the Firelands (assuming for dailies) and then on to Exodar. Makes me wonder.....what is he hiding? What does he care if the competition can see him. This does seem very suspicious to me.

In the meantime, I undercut all of his gems with a single gem. Then again. And again. I will play at his game until he conforms or gets the fuck out.

I whispered him about a whitelist and he did not respond. Prepare for war.

Weekend Update

2011-11-14T10:04:00.001-08:00

My weekend update is going to be very short. Mainly because the only thing I did in WoW was repost my auctions.

This is not because I am tired of WoW. It is because I got into the SW:TOR beta test and played that when I could. That said, there were a number of reasons that I was unable to play as much as I would have liked.

I can't really talk about specifics of the game, but I will say that the questing system is amazing. It blows WoW out of the water in that aspect of the game.

More to come when I am actually allowed to talk about it.

DOUCHEBAG(s) OF THE WEEK!!!!

2011-11-11T08:50:00.000-08:00

This weeks award goes to a bunch of douchebags from Khaz Modan-US

Healsponge, Cathubodva, Ambadastor and Gunnerfro of the guild Prophecy.

I queue up for a Random troll heroic on my Druid healer. Get in and it is a guild group. Cool.

We pull our way to the first boss. No problems. I die at the end of the fight, but he has low enough health that everyone else survives. I get a rez and we move on.

I die on trash on the way to the second boss....because the tank let a guy on a raptor beat on me. Nobody else dies. We do the second boss and everyone survives no problem.

We are on our way to the next boss.....and suddenly I am at the loading screen. WTF. I got kicked.....for what? Because I did not let any of them die on a boss fight? That is the disadvantage to running with a mostly premade....often times the are elitist douchebags.

On a side note, I had another one to mention that happened a while ago.

While running a regular Stonecore, we are chugging along. Lockbox drops. THE ROGUE NEEDS ON IT. Ummmm....ok.

Me: "So I guess we are all going to need on lock boxes from now on"
Rogue: "I am the only one that can open it"
Me: "Anyone can get a rogue or a blacksmith to open a box. You dont need on them. That is like an enchanter needing on all of the greens because they are the only one who can disenchant them."
Rogue: "Lol, I am the only one who can open it".

(My buddy initiated a vote kick that reads "Ninja Douchebag" or something to that effect).

Unfotunately, there are not ethics in random Heroics or instances. The Greater Internet Dickwad Theory is in full effect in randoms.

Hello!

2011-11-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

Been busy with real life, so have not had time to post much lately.

Not much going on. Still making gold and running instances with friends.

One nice thing is that we got to do a couple of Heroics! We had a couple of people in our group who were very wary of running them due to difficulties we had towards the beginning of Wrath. We completed two and did a couple of bosses in others.

We have also been running regulars just for Justice points. We have really neglected some of our alts when it comes to gearing. One of the main reasons is that nobody wanted to run instances due to them being difficult at the time.

In other news....I got my wife two Guardian Cubs with gold. She would not wait for prices to go down and paid 20k and 15k for the two she bought. A couple of days later they are going for under 7k on my server. Oh well....just gold.

We also ran another Black Temple......still not Bulwark of Azzinoth for me. We have not seen a glaive drop either. Our group has most of the T6 pieces out of there.

Closing in on Outland

2011-10-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

My little instance group got together last night to play out relative lowbies for the first time in about a month.

The roster includes a prot warrior, two hunters (one is my wife), mage, and my Discipline Priest.

I was incredibly fun. The stuff that went on would be horrible if it were in a pug, but in a group of friends, it was hilarious. We had zero wipes during the three instances we ran (Dire Maul, Zul-Farak, and Strat Dead side).

It was mostly uneventful until Stratholme. Then we had all kinds of shenanigans going on. On the first set of pulls after opening the gate into Stratholme proper, we must have ended up with 15 mobs. It was a chain of crap getting pulled. All thanks to those damn gargoyles. We survived, which really goes to show you the difficulty of the instance (not very). It does help that I have full heirlooms.

The shenanigans continued on the spider boss. We got the boss and pretty much the rest of the immediate area of mobs on one pull. Hunter auto shot was an accidental pulling machine. On the next boss, my wife was killed by out group when she got mind controlled.

The rest of the instance included other Hunter induced shenanigans. The best part is that it was very enjoyable. If it was a pug, people would have been kicked. Friends can tolerate other friends quirks and mistakes a lot more than random people.

Anyways, we are all in the high 40s or low 50s now, so Outland is just around the corner. We have been leveling almost completely through instances.

Pandaria, Random Kindness, and Many Other Things

2011-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

So, we have a lot more information on Pandaria. There is much QQing going on currently. All I have to say about it is.....I like it!

There are a lot of things that I think will be really good about this expansion. I am however, the eternal optimist.

1) Panaren race and Monk: Both are wins in my book. I think the Pandaren look fun and I really like the idea of a martial arts class that heals by busting people in the face. I also like all of the fun names you can come up with for a Panda.

2) Pokemon: I have a lot of pets. They are mostly just sitting there. If you dont feel like raiding/pvping/instancing on a given day, this could be a nice little distraction.

3) Back to Wrath: The regular Heroics are going to be more like the Wrath Heroics. Short and easy. Just the way I like it. People don't like to be stressed out when playing a game. There were times in Cata where the level of IQ in Heroics was below retarded and caused me to drift away from instancing. If we can carry the retards, things will be much easier.

4) Challenge Modes: This is for the non retards. I think that this is something fun to do with your guild to gain some additional prestige via titles and cosmetic armor.

5) Scenarios: If I read this correctly, this will be like the Skirmishes in LoTRO. That is good. It would basically be a random generated instance with certain objectives you must meet. This is a great idea, especially if it will be tuned for the number of people who do the scenario.

To me, all of this looks like fun. I am excited about the next expansion. I will be playing Star Wars, but probably won't be cancelling WoW (thanks in part to the Year Pass thing they came out with).

On a personal note, there have been a few significant things that went on this week. We got our regular instance group together for the first time in a month. It was a lot of fun. We only ran regulars as everyone but me had somewhat lesser geared characters. They went by with no problems, and I think that a few of us got new pieces of gear.

I still do really enjoy mucking around in instances....as long as it is not in a pug. I actually ended up doing Heroic ZG for the first time this weekend on my warrior. It really didn't seem all that bad, but then again, we had a super geared tank from my guild. I can see where many of the fights would cause great frustration if people did not know what they are doing.

On a side note, I have a bit of a story. One of my old gem competitors is an older guy who plays WoW for fun (apparently retired). We got to chatting about the gem market a while back and still chat from time to time these days. He is in a guild that consists of he and his brother.

Well, I was chatting with him yesterday and he asked my if I wanted a Celestial Steed....for free. He already had one and got this one when the WoW magazine was cancelled. HECK YEAH I WANT IT! He did not want anything in return, but I ended up sending him a Vial of the Sands since I noticed he did not have one yet.

My wife is now the proud owner of a Sparkle Pony! Being nice can pay off, even if it is someone that you compete with in an Auction House market.

Mists of Pandaria

2011-10-21T12:11:00.001-07:00

New expansion as expected. Pandaren race and Monk class getting added. Both sides will get Pandaren. You will do a quest line and pick one or the other at the end. There had been speculation of that.

One thing I really want to know.....are you going to give me another damn character slot? I have one of every class as it is. Do I have to erase one? Which one do I erase?

They need to give at least one more character slot.

If you can't beat them.....

2011-10-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

Join them. I struck up a deal last night with my main gem market competitor to white list each other. White list is a function where you don't undercut a certain person when you autopost. It will automatically post at the exact same price as them.

This is a viable option in a market dominated by just a couple of people. It ensures that you both get your sales and allows you to actually play the game instead of camping the AH.

It is also an advantage for when you just do not have the time to constantly repost (have a job, life outside of WoW etc.).

I am pretty happy with the deal. I can focus on other WoW related things now and still make my gold.

Win-Win for me (and seemingly everyone involved as the competitor was on his main running heroics instead of camping the AH).

Hallowed End is Here

2011-10-19T10:40:00.001-07:00

All I have to say is.....

TRICK TREATS...WHY YOU NO TAKE LESS TIME TO GET.

Uggghh. Going to running all over the damn world...AGAIN. Just for a pet.

Does anyone know if the little Wicker man is a pet or an item?

I have the Horseman mount on my main as well as most everything else. I guess that I will be running it....for tricky treat..../facepalm.

Auction House: Stalking Your Prey

2011-10-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Those assholes just won't stop undercutting you! You don't know what to do! Well I do. Become a detective and figure out their toons, that is what.

The first thing you should do (as most experience AH players will tell you) is to put your competitor on your friends list.

Check out this character's guild. Are there several other characters? Sweet. Do a /who and see who is on in the guild besides your competitor. Refresh it right when your competitor logs off. Then refresh it again for a minute or so. Is there a new character in the search? That is probably your competitor! Put his ass on your friend list too. As a side note, there is an addon that makes your friend list universal across your characters. This is very much needed for spying on the competiton.

You competitor is a bank toon in a guild that has no other members? No problem.

When your competitor logs off, look for characters logging on around mail boxes and possibly using the profession that you are competing for. Character logs on and starts making gems when your competitor logs off? Sweet. That may be your competitor. Put them on your friend's list and monitor them. If you notice the competitor logging off and the other one logging on right afterwards, you have found your person. On the friends list they go. Now that you have an "alt" (more than likely a main) on your friends list, use the /who trick on the guild they are in when your competitor logs off. Any new names pop up? BAM, caught that mofo again.

With a little bit of research, you can be one step ahead of your competition. They will be monitoring your posting character from another of their characters, however you will be monitoring all of theirs. Repost your auctions when they go offline. Or just repost anyways and make them work harder for every gold they make.

Weekend Update and 2 Million Gold Milestone

2011-10-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend in WoW was spent mostly in two ways.

1) Making gold.

2) Leveling my Shaman.

On the gold making front, I pretty much bitch slapped my main gem competitor all weekend. I made 30k for saturday and 25k for Sunday. I can barely keep gems in stock. This is the competitor that would hang out online and undercut constantly. Through a bit of detective work, I found out who his main is. I was online on an alt not in my main guild. I was sitting in the trade district monitoring his activities. He logs off. I am standing by the mail box and hear the sound of gems being crafted. Hmmmm. It is like one in the morning. This has got to be him. I put him on my friends list. Lo and Behold, it is. Fucking owned. Now I know your main guild BEATCH!!!!!

Oh, and I hit 2 million gold this weekend. It felt pretty meh. I will keep assaulting gold milestones at least until SW:TOR comes out. Then we shall see.

As a side effect of all of this, I have about 160 different mails to disenchant now.....or aproximately 1900 items. Yeesh. I am not looking forward to that considering that I also have about 150 stacks of ore to prospect still and about 45-50 mails of uncommon gems that I have not yet turned into Jewelry.

I leveled my Shaman from 83 to 85. This was in direct competition with one of my friends, who has basically leveled a Druid from around 10 to 85 in the course of 1.5 weeks. I don't know why, but we always seem to be competing when it comes to leveling toons. Not always, but it happens.

I hit 85 in Twilight Highlands after completely skipping Uldum. I am currently Elemental and Resto though I plan to do Dungeons as only Resto.

I did my first 85 dungeon on him and had no issues for the most part. We had one wipe when we got a bunch of adds that were hitting everyone but the tank.

For tommorow's post, I will have a new "Fail Pug" of the week. This guy was the ultimate in Douchetastic glory. Stay tuned.

The Future

2011-10-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

As in the future of this blog. I am definately going to be play SW:TOR. I have pre ordered it. A couple of my friends have played the Beta and say it is awesome.

Depending on how much I enjoy SW, that could potentially be the end for WoW.

Potentially because I have tried other MMOs in the past and always come back to WoW.

Regardless of what happens, I will probably be starting a SW related blog.

Then again, I may keep both and play both. I just wish that WoW had the lifetime subscription option.

That is all. Carry on.

Dealing with a Camper

2011-10-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you are dealing with a camper of epic proportions. One of my gem competitors was on last night for 4 hours straight immediately undercutting any competition. It was quite annoying to say the least.

What do you do in these situations.

Here are a few of my suggestions. These are mostly just to fuck withe camping asshole. They may not cause you to gain any more sales.

1) Deep Undercut: This is something I usually don't do, but I strongly considered it last night. If you arent going to make any gold, you undercut down to material cost and basically just post at that price.

2) Jack up their posting fees. This is what I do. I have at least 5 of each gem in my bags. I set my quick auctions to post 1 at a time for 12 hours. I post. I wait for the undercut and immediately post again. If they are posting 3-5 of each gem, they will be paying quite a lot of gold in posting fees. Rinse and repeat as often as possible.

3) Logging on and off. Sometimes, campers will still log off to play other characters. Don't let them. Log onto another character when you are undercut. Once they log off, log back onto your posting toon. When they log back on, log back off. This is only for the purpose of annoying them. They may get tired of logging on and off. They will either stay on their camper or they will say forget about it.

Fight fire with fire. Bitch slap those campers out of your market.

Real Azeroth Heroes

2011-10-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

Real Azeroth Heroes

Darraxus presents: Real Azeroth Heroes

(Real Azeroth Heroes)

Today we salute you Mr. Level 70 who wants to go on my Black Temple Run Guy
(But Im the appropriate level!)

You can't skip any mobs without pulling aggro(How the hell did you get that whole room?!)

Just like you, I enjoy running things for Mogging.....

(But I actually bring my 85!)

You don't mind adding an hour onto my run.
(And you keep on dying!)

So Mr.Level 70 who wants to go to Black Temple Guy, have a bud on me. You will roll on the Warglaives and win. Doing nothing has never been more rewarded.(Mr. LEVEL 70 WHO WANTS TO GO TO BLACK TEMPLE GUY!).

(Yes, I get that level 70 is the "correct" level for the intance, but I don't feel like carrying someone's alt/twink through an instance where they are not going to carry their weight).

The Battle Rages On.

2011-10-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

As I said, you have to fight for your markets. There is one douche on my server (who is also a millionaire I believe), who seems to like driving down gem prices. However, he makes it all to easy to buy out and reset.

He doesnt camp the market. He just posts a bunch of 20 gold gems and fucks off.

This makes my job easier....I get free stock for patch 4.3 and all that new gear. It makes me wonder if he thinks that he should get rid of his gems since epic gems are on the way. He has actually done this before and I drove him out last time.

Ore prices have gone back up, so it isnt all that profitable to sell at some of the prices he is selling at.

The best part is that one of my other competitors has started buying out some of his auctions as well. It is good when people are on the same page.

Unfortunately, my other competitor seems to be on constantly. On their undermine journal heat map, they seem to have around 4 white blocks per day. You have to sleep sometime don't you?

Round 1: FIGHT!

2011-10-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

Both my gem and glyph markets have gone down significantly in the last week or two. This is mainly due to competition that thinks they can get rid of anyone by lowering prices. I have previously already driven out one of my gem competitors. The other guy is the reason I decided that glyphs were not longer profitable in the first place.

I am going to pull no punches. Vicious undercutting will ensue. Operation: Get the Fuck Out of my market commencing.

In the glyph market, glyphs were going for 150 each a week ago. Now they have gone down to 25 each. I can still make plenty of profit at this price.

When people try to push you around, throw your virtual muscle into it.

On another note, one of my gem competitors has been one of my best customers! He has bought out more than 10k worth of my gems in the last month or so. This is the same guy that was instant undercutting me from the mobile auctionhouse. I just put one of every gem up, forced him to cancel repost all of his gems, then did it over and over until I made him run out of mobile transaction.

The auction house can be the most brutal form of PvP in WoW without a doubt.

Gold Tip of the Day: Battling the Remote AH

2011-09-28T09:35:00.001-07:00

I ran into a remote AH competitor last night. He will constantly undercut if he is online. but I noticed that he was also doing it while he was offline. This means that he is using the mobile AH. As GI Joe say, "Knowing is Half the Battle". What do I know? The remote AH only allows 200 transactions per day.

I would post and within 30 seconds, I was undercut.

To combat this, I changed the number of gems I post of each kind to a single gem. I would then post. Wait for him to undercut. Post another round of single gems. This causes him to lose a bunch of AH fees as he has to cancel them again. It also depletes is remote transactions for the day.

It forced them to get back online. Causing severe inconvenience is a legitimate way of eliminating competition.

No go forth and make gold.

Revisiting Old Markets

2011-09-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

There will come times that you will leave specific markets. This usually occurs when competition is furious and profit margins are practically nothing. When you abandon this market, you should still check in on it periodically.

I did just this yesterday and found that there is gold to be made in the glyph market again.

Glyphs are what got me to the gold cap in Wrath. I have barely been selling any in Cata due mainly to one player who drove the prices down to 20 gold a glyph. I got out. Now I am back in.

A single evening made me 3k. I didnt post any glyphs until around 7 or 8 pm. I am now back in full force.

On another gold making note, I bought out 400 stacks of Elementium Ore for the shuffle this morning. They ranged between 19-24 gold per stack. These are the best prices I can remember. The best part is that my competition doesnt get any of the uber cheap ore.

Weekend Update

2011-09-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty busy WoW weekend for me.

One of the first things I did was get some friends together to run some old school raids for sexy gear.

We ended up doing Molten Core, Black Temple, and Serpentshrin Cavern all in the same evening.

I also got down to leveling my Hunter this weekend. I started less than a half of a bubble into level 83, but managed to get to 85. I bought the impact hole puncher for him and unlocked the Hyjal dailies to get a couple of epics.

I then completely skipped regular instance and hopped right into Heroics.

It ended up going pretty well. I was second in DPS/damage done for both of the Heroic instance I ran doing just under 10k dps in both. I am currently running Marksman in instances. Playing my Hunter has been quite a bit of fun and thankfully the queues werent too long for DPS.

I also spent some of my gold and gave a Vial of Sands to two of my friends.

That is now 5 vials that I have purchased so far.....and only one for myself.

Next up: Level my 78 Shaman and perhaps work on my 82 DK.

Defend Your Turf

2011-09-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

In any gold making market you need to defend your turf and show competitors that you are not to be trifled with....or you may soon find yourself out of that market alltogether.

I was recently unable to play for a couple of weeks. When I came back, there was one old competitor back that had previously left my gem market. There was also a new one.

They both tried to get cute. I had to lay the smack down to show that I am back in business.

The first one would always undercut by copper unless it was me. He would undercut lower and lower. I just kept undercutting him until it was no longer profitable for him. He seems to be the fickle type who comes and goes. Hopefully, this is another gone phase.

Second, the new one. If he is online and I post....I will be undercut within a matter of seconds. I dont have all day to spend posting shit.

So, I saw a golden opportunity. He had bought out some of my reds to reset the market while I was online. I just undercut him back down to the price they were selling at before. He made zero profit on the gems he bought off of me.

You have to keep hammering at your competition to show them that you are not a week link. Beat them down and make them quit.

Playing My Priest Again

2011-09-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well, we were finally able to get a guild group together to do instances with our lower level characters.

Me on my 47 Priest Schenker
My wife on her 45 Hunter Asstrid
Thewind the Feral Druid and our Tank at 42
Gandor the Dwarf priest also at around 42.

First dungeon we got was the Dire Maul (the one with the Demon dog at the end). This instance was easy, but also seemed to take quite a while. You had to run back and forth turning in quests. We forgot to disable the shields on the top area and had to go back. Overall, it wasnt too bad. I did my first instance as Shadow. It took a bit of figuring out, but I ended up doing some pretty respectable DPS

The second dungeon we got was Scholomance. I switched to my Discipline Smite spec and Gandor switched to Shadow to give it a go. We got through the instance just fine, despite it taking around an hour.

We started with a pug rogue who had a couple of funny moments. First, our tank (who we were on vent with) DCed. After a couple of minutes, the Rogue initiated a vote kick. Ummmmm. Dude. Didn't you notice that we are all from the same guild? His response was "Didn't notice, Soz". Our tank got back on and away we went.

Later, as we were clearing the last rooms of bosses, the rogue suddenly had to leave after saying "Wife and kid are home....WIFE AGGRO".

We got another person to fill in for the very end of the instance and finished no problem.

I enjoy running instances with friends. Which is one of the reasons I generally don't pug any Cata content. It is not worth the headache.

Brewfest!

2011-09-21T09:43:00.001-07:00

A Holliday to drink and drink and drink some more.

Whats not to like?

I did the boss a few times for the daily keg with the justice points and chance at another item.

In three tries, I ended up with a new Tankard of Terror, a Stamina trinket on my Paladin, and that is about it.

My wife picked up a nice INT trinket on her Boomkin. She also got the two Holliday pets.

I used to love the Brewfest trinkets....I just dont know if they are really better than what I have. Sure they are epic, but stats arent like they were back in Wrath.

I have two ilvl 333 Mastery trinkets on my Warrior tank. I am wondering if the Dodge and Stamina trinkets will be legit upgrades.

I definately want them on my Pally tank and Druid for Feral spec though.

Epic Gems coming from Raids

2011-09-19T10:04:00.001-07:00

Apparently Epic Gems will be dropping from Raids only. This means that the people who have been stockpiling Pyrite Ore may be dumping it.

Be on the lookout for lots of Pyrite and decent prices. Snatch it up and make belt buckles.

That is my gold tip for the day.

Some Notes From Ghostcrawler about 4.3

2011-09-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

This is all from MMO champion.

Deathwing Raid
The new raid is called The Dragon Soul. It contains eight bosses, and boss 7 and 8 are both Deathwing.
There will be a mount reward for killing Deathwing.
Deathwing will only drop weapons.
Heroic Deathwing will eventually be made easier after the top guilds kill it so that more people can experience it.
Tier 13 will not be available at all from valor points.
The new legendaries are two daggers (main hand and offhand) that are only usable by all three Rogue specs. Combat Rogues will be made to use these daggers as well without a DPS loss. The questline will revolve around the pure black dragon (from the egg in the Badlands) and features several Rogue-centric elements.
Melee classes will be getting a buff that is only active in the new raid to help them compete with ranged classes.

New Five Man Heroics
You will enter the new 5-mans and raid in Caverns of Time.
The first new 5-man is called "Endtime" where Nozdormu will show players the future if Deathwing wins.
The second new 5-man, "Well of Eternity" is a journey into the past, the War of the Ancients specifically, to help Thrall recover the Dragon Soul to use against Deathwing.
The third new 5-man, called "Hour of Twilight", has players escorting Thrall in present day to Wyrmrest Temple, where the final battle against Deathwing will take place.

Looking for Raid
Looking for Raid probably won't share a lockout with Normal and Heroic raids.
Looking for Raid gear will be stronger than the new five man heroics, but weaker than normal raids.

Other
There will be raid melee buff across the board. The attack power buff will apply more to melee attack power than ranged attack power.
Tank rotation changes that are related to survivability won't be in this expansion.
Epic gems will drop in the new raid in Normal and Heroic only. Each player gets a geode when a boss is killed which has a small chance to contain an epic gem, most will have rare gems. It is rare enough to take all of 4.3 to replace all of your red rare quality gems with red epic gems.
Firelands was nerfed so that players could see the content and continue progression instead of hitting a wall in heroic modes.
"Quite a few" new profession recipes will be added.
Northrend will require 2/3rd of the experience it does now, making leveling alts faster.
Corrupted Ashbringer won't be available for transmogrification from any vendor.
Old PvP armor will come back for transmogrification.

Ghostcrawler: The focus of our 4.3 patch is the heroes’ final battle against Deathwing the dragon. There will be an epic raid where 10 and 25 player groups can try to defeat Deathwing. In addition, we have three 5 player dungeons to kind of set the stage; it will be kind of similar to the way the dungeons in the Icecrown patch lead up to the final conflict against the Lich King. We have a new legendary weapon that players will be able to get in the raid. We have a Raid Finder system that will work a lot like Dungeon Finder to allow more casual raiders to get into the content. And we have a couple of character customization features we’ve talked about already: Transmogrification which lets you change the look of your armor and Void Storage which gives you a place to store it all. And then finally we have an update to the Darkmoon Faire - an entire island full of fun carnival games.

Will the new Looking for Raid difficulty share a lockout with Normal and Heroic raids?
Ghostcrawler: We’re not entirely sure yet because we’re still working out the details. Our goal is that it doesn’t. We want people to be able to do the raid with their group and then still do Looking for Raid, maybe on the weekends or when their guild isn’t available.

Do you feel like you are alienating any part of the player base when you make easier content or do you think the new three difficulty system might solve that?
Ghostcrawler: We’re hoping it solves it. I mean, generally this is an experiment for us. We’re not sure how it is going to work out. We have a hugely diverse player base, and we want to be able to let lots of different players see the content. We felt in the past we were struggling too much to decide “Okay, heroic mode is for 5% of the population… that means normal mode has to be for 95% of the raiding population” and we were stretching ourselves really thin. So our hope is that by offering up an additional difficulty, it will free up normal mode to be targeted towards the kind of traditional guild it has been, where players who don’t have a lot of time to raid or find the commitment too much can do Raid Finder to be able to experience the fights.

While the game may continue to go strongly for a long time, do you think WoW may have hit its peak subscription number at all?
Ghostcrawler: I mean, gosh, that is so hard to know. It’s really hard to tell what is… you know it’s a seven-year-old game at this point. We don’t have really any examples of games that have remained so popular for so long to really know what the future might bring. We certainly understand that some players have just gotten their fill of World of Warcraft, and the kind of things we would have to do to provide really interesting new features for them risks changing World of Warcraft into something else. We have to be really careful not to overhaul the game so dramatically that people who love the game fall out of love with it. At the same time, it is a rough economy going on, summers are always a little light, and periods between expansions are always a little light, so we’ll see how things look after another expansion or two.

So when Cataclysm came about, there were a lot of changes to the healing model. Do you think that it has been successful and will you insure its stability in the next raid set?
Ghostcrawler: Yes, we’ve really liked the way the healing model has worked out. It had some hiccups along the way where I think players just starting out going into dungeons, particularly the heroic dungeons, felt like they just didn’t have the mana to do anything. That was probably a little too extreme. We’ve gotten to the point now where most raid geared healers feel like they have the mana to do what they want, but they still can’t completely waste it. A Discipline Priest that does nothing but Power Word: Shield is going to find they’re going to have to do something quickly to get their mana back or they’ll have to risk not having enough for the end of the fight.

So another thing that came with Cataclysm, well even in other expansions, was that some fights favored some types of DPS that led to some classes being kind of sat out on certain encounters. Do you think that in the Deathwing fight this might happen as well or are you trying to balance that?
Ghostcrawler: We try to keep in mind, I mean on one hand we really want to encourage all available players to play. It’s tough not to go in and try to change things when you find that someone is too weak on a fight and a more competitive guild risks sitting that player out. We really don’t like that, but at the same time if we aren’t careful then the fights will all kind of feel the same because we’ll have to say “Okay, where’s the AE moment so that my Demonology Warlock can shine and where is the movement component of this fight because that is really good for my Fire Mage” or whatever. So we kind of give… it’s hard enough coming up with new encounters where players don’t immediately say “Oh, you’ve done that already; we’ve seen it all before”. We make so many hundreds of bosses that we like to give our encounter designers a lot of room to maneuver.

It becomes a problem when it feels like consistently the same types of characters aren’t competing. We’ve seen a lot of concern about the melee classes just can’t compete with the ranged classes. Part of that is class mechanics; part of it is that we just have a lot of encounters that really favor ranged. So for the Deathwing tier, what we’re going to do is just a straight up buff to the melee classes that hopefully helps them a little bit. We’re going to do that in such a way that the raid buffs will just end up buffing melee a little more than they’ll buff ranged. So hopefully you won’t have a lot of widespread effects in PvP or things like that, but melee characters who are just stabbing away on a boss in optimal situations will feel like their DPS is very competitive.

Can you talk a little bit about the new legendary for this patch?
Ghostcrawler: Sure. It is a pair of daggers – a main-hand and an off-hand dagger. We are designing them such that all three Rogue specs will be able to use it. We have a little tweak in there so that Combat Rogues will be able to Sinister Strike with the daggers without it being a big DPS loss.

The story of these legendary daggers has to do with the last remaining pure black dragon egg. So kind of how we got here is the black dragons are a really cool enemy in our universe, they have been for a while, but we’re kind of killing them off a lot. Onyxia has been killed and brought back so many times that we’re starting to feel bad for the old girl. Nefarian is dead, again, and Deathwing is going down. So we thought we were running out of black dragons, and we really didn’t want to do that because they’re a really great enemy and we really want to use them again in the future.

So players who play through the Cataclysm quests in the Badlands will remember a questline around this uncorrupted black dragon egg. It was free of the taint of the Old Gods. So what is going to happen is that black dragon egg eventually hatches and there is a black dragon prince who is pure – he’s not a minion of Deathwing; he’s not corrupted by the Old Gods. But that doesn’t mean he is necessarily a good guy. He’s kind of out for himself, he’s kind of got his own agenda, and to bring his plans to fruition he contacts the Rogue because Rogues are a little shady, always working in the shadows, always playing a number of games and has other things going on. The black dragon prince reaches out to the Rogue character and says “If you help me out, I’ll reward you with these increasingly more powerful daggers”.

How did the team decide to make a Rogue weapon rather than a tanking weapon for this legendary?
Ghostcrawler: It’s really funny because every player out there wants and almost expects the next legendary is going to be for them. We try not to let it fall into too much of a pattern. We want legendaries to be something exciting, something that is earned, not something that you “deserve” because it is “your time to get one”. We thought that we liked part of the Rogue story. We thought that Rogues had maybe felt a little bit not special in this expansion with all the high damage numbers that were being done by classes like Mages. We thought it was just the right opportunity to make them shine and feel kind of special. Unless you count the bow, we haven’t done any class specific legendaries to this extent before, so we thought it would be fun to make the legendary quest VERY Rogue-themed. There will be stealthing and pickpocketing, things we know that a Rogue can handle. Then, the weapons themselves, their proc, we’re still building, but the idea is that their proc will tie in something very Rogue specific as well.

One of the problems with tanking weapons is that our tanks use very different weapons so we could say “Well this legendary weapon is going to be for the Warrior and Paladin and hopefully we’ll get to the Death Knight and Druid someday in the future”. With all the talk about a legendary weapon that transforms “you could have a 2-handed version or a 1-handed version”, too much of that I think starts to suck away what is really special about the legendary when it can turn into all these different things.

I guess the message to the players is don’t despair and don’t assume that you’ll never get a legendary for your guy. Hopefully we’ll eventually get them all, but we don’t want to keep it on such a timetable that players are able to predict “Okay, the Elemental Shaman legendary is coming in Patch 6.2 followed by the Hunter crossbow”.

How do you feel the Dungeon Journal worked out and how will you be releasing the information in it this time around?
Ghostcrawler: We’re really happy with the feature overall. I know that it is a lot to ask the players to go research a fight completely before the first time they see it, but we really like the way you can link spells in your raid chat or something and say “Okay, I want you to handle this” and maybe when somebody doesn’t understand a mechanic very well you can explain it a little better that way. Like all of our features it will evolve over time but we’re pretty happy with how it turned out.

I know there was some concern amongst the most hardcore raiders that they didn’t want the surprise spoiled for them and they kind of wanted to do discover things on their own. Maybe in the future we won’t reveal all the mechanics on heroic, but that is something we’ll have to evaluate.

What achievements will be granted in the new Looking for Raid system and are they similar to existing ones or any new rewards?
Ghostcrawler: We are very concerned about preserving the sense of accomplishment for the Normal and Heroic tier. We don’t want to over reward Looking for Raid. It is really there for people who want to see the content and want to feel like they’re raiding, but we don’t want it to be more attractive than traditional organized raiding.

We will offer some achievements; they’ll be very simple, nothing like you’ll be able to get in a Normal or Heroic. For example, it might just be “Kill the first four bosses” as one achievement and “Kill the second four bosses” as another achievement, something like that. We won’t, for example, put the legendary in the Looking for Raid tier. We are doing epic gems this time around as a drop in the raid and we may not have those drop in the Looking for Raid tier.

Where does the gear fit in terms of the new 5-mans? Will they be like ZA and ZG were or will they be a bit lower… where will they fit?
Ghostcrawler: A little bit higher… we’re still debating the exact numbers but I think they’re probably slotting it maybe between Normal Firelands and Heroic Firelands. It will be slightly weaker than the Looking for Raid tier and obviously weaker than the remaining Deathwing raid tier.

And what about Looking for Raid gear… how powerful will it be?
Ghostcrawler: Yeah, like I said, it should be slightly above the 5-player dungeon gear but not as powerful as the normal raid. The Deathwing raid is called The Dragon Soul; it should be weaker than The Dragon Soul tier.

Will the new Darkmoon Faire update change anything to Insane in the Membrane?
Ghostcrawler: No, I don’t believe so. I think our plans for Insane in the Membrane in the future are to try in the future sometime to offer a brutally difficult achievement or Feat of Strength for players who are looking for it. But it makes us nervous to go mess with that one too much because some players were able to do it when it was really hard and we don’t want to risk making it easier or making it even harder or that sort of thing.

What kind of abilities does Deathwing have in his encounter and why doesn’t he just breathe fire on us?
Ghostcrawler: Oh, the encounter is really, really cool. First of all, it is split into two fights, so boss seven is Deathwing and then boss eight is also Deathwing.

In fight seven, you parachute off of a gunship onto Deathwing’s back as he’s flying from Dragonblight towards the Maelstrom. You have pry these armor plates off of his back and fight off the corrupted blood that comes out. All the while, Deathwing himself is trying to shake you off his back and he’s going to do barrel rolls and things like that to try to dislodge you like the little parasite you are because he is so big.

The final Deathwing fight is really amazing. He crashes into the Maelstrom and then he kind of emerges out of it again. And he’s so big; he’s taking up this whole area. The players hop around from the little islands in the Maelstrom. So on the first little island they might be fighting one of his tentacles, and then they have to fly to the next island and now they’re fighting a leg and then they fly to the next island and they’re fighting another big tentacle. All the while the dragon aspects, Alexstrasza and Ysera and Nozdormu, are flying around and they’re also helping the raid in this fight. So Alexstrasza might breathe fire at an important moment or Nozdormu might stop time. They’re not helping you at random. There is a little bit of strategy as to how you use their abilities too, so they’re not just background, it’s actually a pretty critical mechanic of beating the fight.

Transmogrification question, when you transfer the appearance of something that is enchanted with say, Mongoose, will that effect go over?
Ghostcrawler: No, the enchants won’t go over. You’ll have to enchant the weapon the same way you would a non-transmogrified weapon.

Right now leveling and gearing up alts takes a significant amount of time and investment. Are there any improvements coming in this area?
Ghostcrawler: In 4.3, we’re actually increasing the leveling rate of Northrend pretty dramatically. We’re dropping the time it takes by a third. The players should notice that. Long-term we recognize that we definitely are going to have a problem at some point. If World of Warcraft’s character level is like 120 someday, it is asking an awful lot of players to hurry through all of that to get to the endgame if that is what they are interested in. We’re taking about various mechanics we might eventually do to help out with that, but in the short-term, just increase leveling rate in Northrend.

The Greatest Gold Tip of All

2011-09-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

A Happy wife is a happy life. If your wife doesnt like or approve of your gaming, you will not be making gold. You will be making tears :p

Get her to start playing with you or set up a playing schdeule.

So yeah. Time is money friends.

Darraxus Gold Tips #9: The Shuffle

2011-09-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick overview of "The Shuffle" or sometimes known as the Obsidium/Elementium Shuffle.

Step 1: Propsect Ore
Step 2: Cut Gems and sell them
Step 3: Send profitable color gems to Alchmeist to Transmute
Step 3: Turn Alicite, Jasper, and other colors that are less profitable as cut gems into Jewelry. Send to Enchanter to DE.
Step 4: Make enchant scrolls with dusts and essences from DEing Jewelry.
Step 5:??????
Step 6: Profit!!!!

This is just a quick breakdown for those people who dont know what the shuffle is or how to do it.

Fail Pug of the Day

2011-09-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

Clubzay - Jubei'Thos

This guy is a major douchebag.

I get into a Drak run on my level 76 Shaman as healer. As we are pulling trash on our way to the first boss, this bundle of pubes states "Im going to need all of the greens. If you don't want me to I will leave."

To which we responded "Ok bye".

That should be the end of it. It a douche move to say you are needing all of the greens to start with.

Then he says "Well if you would rather have some crappy greens than a fast tank thats fine. But you are going to have to kick me. He pulls crap, doesnt tank it. All DPS dies while he runs off and Shadowmelds. I make it out of the instance.

I use my big boy words and call him a "fucking retard".

One of the DPS one ups me and call him a "faggot".

The douchebag actually has the never to say that he is going to report us. Lol.

We end up having to kick him because he wont leave. Unfortunately that means he can get into a group with other people.

We ended up getting another tank shortly after and finished the instance quickly. The new tank did more DPS as well and didnt demand things like a fucking prima donna.

It is people like Clubzay that make people not want to run PuGs. He also gives tanks a bad name and adds to the "arrogant" sterotype. If you are pugging...follow the rules of a pug. Dont try to act like you are the hottest thing since sliced bread.

On a side note, I 6 manned Black Temple last night with my wife and real life friends. It took about 1.5 hours and was incredibly easy. You will definately need a healer though. I think the only rough spot we really had was phase two of the Illidan fight with the fire elementals. Much tier was gathered and a couple new weapons for transmog were obtained. I think Tempest keep is up next for us.

Gold Tip: Resetting Markets

2011-09-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

Resetting markets can be a very nice way to make some gold. This can work very well in many markets, but it will only work if you know your competitors. If you have someone in the market that will repost at a very low price every time you reset, then there are going to be problems. You can continue to buy them out, but it they seem to have unlimited stock, you will not make anything in the interim.

However, you do have a chance to make some gold by stockpiling it down the road. When new patches come out, sales seem to spike. You will be sitting on a large pile of stockpiled items and make a ton.

This is more of an investment.

In other news, I have been doing little other than making gold and trying for transmorg pieces. I am thinking about doing a Black Temple run, but am wondering if it is doable with 5 or 6 85s. Seems like it should be considering that I can solo Karazhan.

The BC raids are the ones I really want to do. I think the BC tier sets were amongst the best in the game and really looked great. Not to mention I loved the BC raids the most.

Anyways, what have you been doing for transmorgrification?

Darraxus Gold Tips #8: Enchanting

2011-09-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

Enchanting has been a great money making profession since they put vellums into the game. This profession goes together with Jewelcrafting just as wonderfully as Alchemy. You take the uncommon quality jewelry that you made on your JC and send it over to your Enchanter to DE. You then use the materials to make enchants.

My best selling enchants are:

Gloves - Haste
Chest- Mighty Stats
Gloves- Mastery
Chest- Stamina
Boots- Earthen Vitality
Cloak- Critical Strike
Cloak- Greater Intellect

On top of these, you can also sell the lantern pet and higher level enchants for a nice chunk of gold.

Darraxus Gold Tips #7: Inscription

2011-09-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

Inscription is not the same for me as it once was unfortunatley. Fortunately, with low herb prices, it can still be quite profitable with enough time to watch the market.

I am only going to briefly go over this profession as there are two things that I sell.

Glyphs: Sell ALL THE GLYPHS!!!! Well, not really. There are several that dont sell for more than a gold. You will have to do some research, but there are tons of glyphs for each class that sell well.

Darkmoon Trinkets: These trinkets were huge money makers at the beginning of Cata, and can still make you big chunks of gold. The materials to make the cards are way down, so there are profits to still be made. The Tsunami deck sells the best by far. The Earthquake deck sells for the least.

I would give more insight, but I have largely gotten out of this market.

Darraxus Gold Tips #6: Alchemy

2011-09-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

To be quite honest with you, Alchemy is a profession I use all the time, but not in the way many people think. Potions and Flasks dont really seem to be all that profitable.....but transmutes are. Here are some of my tips to make gold with alchemy. Transmute spec is a must.

1) Transmute Cooldowns: Both True gold and Element transmute can make you a good amount of gold. Especially if you get some nice procs.

2) Transmute Gems: In synergy with jewelcrafting, this skill is a big gold mine. I send over all Carnelian and Hessonite as well as some Nightstone to be transmuted.The procs make it awesome. You are essentialy getting extra gold every time a gem procs.

3) Low Level Alchemist Stone Trinket: The one with a decent amount of stamina on it sells very well to tank.s

This is not my favorite stand alone profession, but in synergy with Jewelcrafting, you can make a BIG difference in your bank account.

Darraxus Gold Tips #5: Jewelcrafting

2011-09-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

Jewelcrafting is my bread and butter money maker. I make anwhere from 10-25k a day just selling gems. There are other things that you can sell to make a profit (monocles and Relics for instance), but I am going to go over some of the gems that I have found to be most profitable.

Red: Bold, Delicate, and Brilliant Inferno. These all sell like crazy as they are primary stats for a lot of classes. If you have to choose one, I would start with Brilliant.

Orange: Pretty much all of them sell well on my server, but the ones I seem to sell the most starts with Reckless Ember Topaz. After that, I would say the Adept, Artful, and Fine cuts all sell very well. You will have to check your market, but Reckless would be the first cut to pick up.

Purple: This is another one that sells a ton of gems. The one that really stands out to me as a huge seller though is the Purified Demonseye. I would grab this one first, then the Glinting Demonseye.

Green: These are lower selling gems, but my most sold is the Puissant Dream Emerald. After that, the Zen Dream emerald seem to sell ok. I would not worry too much about green gem patterns until you have the good red, orange, and purple ones.

Blue: These sell pretty cheaply as well, but the cuts I sell the most are the Solid and Rigid Ocean Sapphire.

Yellow: I actually sell quite a few yellow gems. They dont sell for much, but sell in good volume. The Fractured, Quick, and Resilience cut all seem to sell pretty well. Like I said, they dont sell for a lot, but gold is gold.

Go forth an make gold!

Darraxus Gold Tips #4: Engineering

2011-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Engineering has long been the "fun" profession, but has also be ridiculed as not being able to make gold. This is a lie. There are ways to make some gold, you just have to find them. I will list a couple of tips below.

1) Pets: Engineers have a decent number of pets that sell for a nice profit. Two of the recipes drop in Gnomeregan (Lil Smoky and Pet Bombling). There is a mechanical squirrel recipe that you can often times find for very cheap on the AH. There is a mechanical yeti that you get froma quest in the rarely visited Wintersping. Make pets...sell pets...profit.

2) High Powered Flashlight: This is lower level rare quality hit trinket. The materials are very cheap and I often times sell them for up to 250 gold.

3) Khorium Power Cores: These items are made from khorium bars. I was selling these items for 500 gold each when bars were significantly cheaper. One of the best things is that there is generally not a ton of competition.

These are just a few ways to make gold as an engineer. Get out there and make that gold.

Darraxus Gold Tips #3: Blacksmithing

2011-08-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Blacksmithing has been a popular and expensive profession for as long as I can remember. You make plate armor and melee weapons which can all sell very well. I would rather talk about some of the non big ticket items that can sell well.

1) Belt Buckles: Any of the really. Ebonsteel belt buckles are needed by any character who runs instances and want to not be made fun of. They sell like crazy and make good profit margins on my server. I sell around 5-15 a day at between 175-300 gold each.

2) Imperial Plate Armor: This is the armor that makes you look like a Stormwind Guard. There are probably not a lot of players with the recipes these days due to the fact that they cost a ton of thorium bars to purchase. You can bark these sets in trade and sell them at a very heft markup. This is something you may want to look into with Transmogrification coming out.

3) Leveling tanking gear: One of the better selling leveling tanking gear is the Cobalt set that you can pickup at the beggining of Wrath content. I will be an upgrade over BC elevel items for most tanks that have not done BC raid content.

Darraxus Gold Tips #2: Leatherworking

2011-08-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

Leatherworking. It sucks. Skinning levels much faster that LW and unless you buy materials you have to spend extra time farming. That said, there are of course profit opportunities if you want to give it a shot.

1) Leg Armor: I think that leg armor has long been the money maker of leatherworkers everywhere. Every melee class and Hunters will be needing your leg enchants. They sell quickly, but are a very competetive market.

2) The leather shuffle. There are a lot of people that have made a decent bit of gold off of the leather shuffle. You turn savage leather into Heavy Savage Leather. Then you turn that a Hide. This may not work on all servers.

3) Level 78-79 Cataclysm green items. These are actually pretty good sellers that sell for above material price. I sold several of these for 125 gold each no problem. The items are good for level 80 twinks as well as people who need to upgrade their Heirlooms before heading into Cataclysm content.

Not my favorite profession, but there is still gold to be made!

Darraxus Gold Tips #1: Tailoring

2011-08-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Ah tailoring. The profession used by Warlocks and Mages around the world. If you are reading this, you likely already know that tailoring is the profession that makes cloth items. Well, what can you do to make gold with tailoring?

There are many ways to make gold as a tailor, but I am just going to list some of my favorite methods.

1) Shirts. Yes, shirts. The things that have no stats. There are a great number of them that you can pick up as a tailor and they generally all make a nice mark up on the material costs. I have noticed that the Swashbuckler shirts seem to sell very well.

2) Leg armor. Tailoring classes make the caster leg armor that all of the other classes want. This is a pretty liquid market and you can sell several a day for decent profits. Dont forget the lower end Cataclysm leg armors as many players are hesitant to throw down a large chunk of change for the epic leg armors.

3) Bags. Specifically Netherweave bags. They sell for above material cost and are still the go to bag for new alts. The best part is you will often sell several at a time. A dont really bother with the upper level bags.

4) Low Level Rare items. There are several rare quality low level items that a tailor can make. They sell for significantly more than the materials. Grab the mats off the auction house and profit.

More news from 4.3

2011-08-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

Patch 4.3+
The new 5 man dungeons will help to introduce the Deathwing Raid.
The current plan with the Deathwing raid is to have it all available immediately upon release.
The Deathwing raid will be smaller than Ulduar with many phases or encounters with Deathwing.
Patch 4.4 will bring a world event before the next expansion.
The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions.

Future Changes and Features
Paid Guild Transfers are still in the works.
Battle.net account wide achievements are still in the works.
Armor dyes are unlikely to be included in the game, but mount customization is a possibility.
Class Quests are unlikely to return due to the amount of time it takes to design and implement them.
No gold sinks are coming soon because of the large variance in the amount of gold players have.
A real money Auction House is not planned for WoW.

Other Notes
RealID LFD grouping was originally going to be paid because of the similarity to Paid Character Transfers, but they decided it was the right thing for the game to offer it for free.
Cross realm RealID grouping is going to be expanded to cover Battlegrounds as well. Depending on how well that works it could be expanded to raids and rated battlegrounds.
There has been a drop in gold farming because phishing and hacking accounts is more profitable.
New players are still having trouble with the first 30 minutes and five levels of the game, more hand holding is coming for very basic concepts like moving, questing, fighting, and looting.
Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects, it solved the need to do both every week but removed some extra content that could be done every week. Some changes will be made in the future to make everyone happier with the solution.

So, there is some more news. I knew that the 5 mans would likely be similar to the Lich King 5 mans they added around the time Icecrown was released.

Having Battle.net achievments would be awesome. You could do certain things on certain characters that you would prefer to do it on. If you have a character you enjoy PvPing on, you can still get the achievments for your main.

They are making the starting zones easier.....because mobs that dont aggro on you, built in quest helper, and ridiculous health and mana regen out of combat were not enough! It really doest make much difference to me, but if it can help a new player then why not?

Getting Ready for Transmorgification

2011-08-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

This is what I have been doing lately. I have run some of the old school raids on some of my characters to attempt to get some cool looking gear with mixed results. I think I have gotten two tier pieces in 3 raids (a piece of T1 on my warrior and the T2 helmet on my Druid), but have gotten some cool looking weapons and shields. I have run MC once and BWL twice.

I also decided I am going to try and deck out the purple faux Justice Set from Outlands on my Paladin.

BWL was pretty much a piece of cake. I am pretty sure we could have two manned it if not for Razorgore. You have to kill all of the eggs or you can not move on, even if you kill him before he explodes everyone. We 6 manned it the first time and 4/5 manned it the second time. It takes about 35-45 minutes.

I plan on running these raids on a fairly regular basis for the gear. I also did a Karazhan run and we did a 4 man Naxx 10.

What have you been doing to get ready for Transmorgification?

Yay Heroics!

2011-08-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

Woohoo. Three Heroics in two days. I havent run this many heroics in months.

The first one I did was tanking on my Warrior. Also attenting were my wife on her Boomkin, my two friends (Husband and Wife) on their Hunter and Ret Pally, and my sister playing her Holy Paly.

I should note that my wife and my friend's wife are both very unexperienced in Heroic. How bad was it? Not bad at all! We one shotted every boss but the Foe Reaper 5000. We got him in around 3 attempts after we got hit with a fire elemental during the enrage phase on the first two tries.

I was actually very surprised that we one shotted the last three bosses without much problem at all. Especially considering that two of our players had never done any of those bosses.

Then last night, we ran two Heroics. My wife was not present, so it was the Hunter and Ret Paladin while I healed on my Resto Druid. We grabbed two players from my guild including the best Heroic tank EVAR.

The first instance was Heroic Stonecore and we had a couple of issue, especially with trash. Now that I think of it, we one shotted every boss, but we had a number of issues dying on trash when standing in whirlwinds and getting an extra group or two.

After that, we decided on one more Heroic and got Throne of Tides. I used to hate this instance so much. This time, we basically walked through it no problem. Again, we had more issues with trash than we did with bosses.

Overall, it was actually very fun running these Heroics. I think that one of the main reasons was that I was not having to deal with randoms.

I think there may be more Heroic running on the Horizon.

Big News with 4.3!!!

2011-08-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Patch 4.3 - Deathwing, Transmogrifier, Void Storage
Tom Chilton (Kalgan) answered a couple of questions from Gamona.de on Patch 4.3, and we got a bunch of very interesting news out of it. Patch 4.3 will feature:

New Raid - The Deathwing raid, making it very likely to be the last patch before the next expansion.
3 new 5-man instances - Including one in the Caverns of Time. (War of the Ancients was mentioned as a cataclysm instance a few years ago, but a lot of things have changed since then, who knows!)
The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!)
Players won't be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor.
The Void Storage is a new type of bank where players will be able to store their old armors in order to free up space in their regular bank.
The Abyssal Maw dungeon is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn't convincing enough/fitting.

This is from MMO champion.

A couple of thoughts on this. I am glad for more 5 mans. I really enjoy 5 man instances and running them with my friends. I imagine that we may see some like the Icecrown ones that will have us encounter Deathwing.

The coolest things to me are the transmorgification and the Void Storage.

I will be really glad to change the look of my gear. It will be awesome. I may have to go farm a Bulwark of Azzinoth now since I think it is the coolest shield in the game. I can already see myself rocking the Suneater as my tanking weapon. This has so many great possibilities.

Another thing that would be cool is if you could buy skins with gold. With the inflation of gold, it would be good to have some kind of extra gold sink.

This has all the makings to be AWESOME!!!!

You are not prepared!

2011-08-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

I have been running a lot of low level instances recently. It has been super fun as I have been doing with two of my bestest friends and my very bestest friend (my wife).

I love the way that the quests are just sitting there for you to pick up right inside the instance. After the first random of the day, I will pick and choose ones we havent done just for the quests.

The one thing that these instances dont get you ready for....are instances.

Seriously. There were several times where about 3-4 groups were accidentally pulled in an instance. It was somewhat tough, but I kept the group alive. There was one in particular in Live Strat where we got three groups of mobs including a green abomination and then the dumb ass boomkin pug decided he was going to open a mailbox at the same time.

The problem is, that this wont really fly in a Cataclysm Dungeon/Heroic. If you go into one of those without executing very well, you are going to have a very rough time of it.

I wouldnt mind if they nerfed cata dungeons even more. They are no longer relevant content and are just used to generate valor and justice. I would love to see it revert back to the way it was in Wrath where you could chain pull the instance willy nilly. Thats just me though.

Weekend Update

2011-08-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

Had a pretty good weekend in WoW and got to play with my wife and friends.

I gained a level on my Hunter with my new and shiny spirit bear! That animal is a BEAST. I had to come up with a fitting intimidating name that will strike fear into the heart of mobs around the world of warcraft. I named him Bernstein.

I also gained a level on my long time bank toon and now level 65 rogue. He has been an on again off again project for a very long time. I went ahead and picked up the leather heirloom head and cloak for him. He actually does pretty decent DPS as well! Being able to stealth and regular run speed is a huge plus.

The most fun I had this weekend was in two parts.

First, my wife's B-Day is coming up so I wanted to give he an early gift. I took her over to the area between stormwind and elwynn with the water fall. I set out the romantic picnic and a cake! Then I gave her a bundle of spring flower as well as a nicely wrapped gift. Which was a Vial of the Sands. Now she has one on both of her main toons.

I also had a ton of fun running dungeons on my priest with my wife on her Hunter and out two friends. We ended up running a bunch of them, and since we are all in the same guild we got the guild challenge credit!

We had a lot of fun. With two newbie hunters there was much mispulling and many shenanigans. We only wiped once and that was after the instance ended. We had defeated Stratholme- Front Gate and were going back for Forresten Hearthsinger or whatever his name is. We figured...meh the mobs are tied up with Argent guys now. Lets pull him. We ended up with about 30 mobs on us. I guess you wouldnt consider it a wipe since my wife actually survived with a well timed Feign Death.

Anyways, it was quite a fun weekend and I am still enjoying my Disc Priest alot. I am 46 now and Outland will be right around the corner.

I Found It!

2011-08-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

What you may ask? The ability to play a priest and actually enjoy it.

I have been leveling him with a couple of friends who are playing their Warrior and Hunter. This is now my highest level priest ever at 42.

What has made me enjoy it? Well the first thing is the bubbles that you have as a Dicc priest. I always thought that this was a unique and cool way to heal.

The second piece of awesome? The fact that I can heal people by killing baddies with smite! And it is a smart heal that heals for a signifcant amount.

Not only does this help instances go by faster, but at lower levels it make them a bit more interesting than bubble and sit.

I knew there had to be something cool about priests, and I found it!

I picked up a dual spec and grabbed shadow. Can someone help me out with a rotation for a Shadow Priest?

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Lucky....

2011-08-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

I consider myself very lucky when it comes to WoW. This is not because I always win rolls on stuff I like or always make the right decision at the right time.

It is because I have a wife who plays with me and has even gotten to enjoy the game despite hating it originally.

Just one of the many reasons I love my wife. Always the giver.

I know a lot of people have a lot of issues with their SOs when it comes to WoW and games in general. I was reading on WoWInsider about people that would "sneak" WoW. Wait for their SO to got to bed then sneak on and play. And the SO thinks that they quit the game.

What is your SO/WoW relationship like?

Wheelin' and Dealin'

2011-08-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

One of the best things you can do as a gold maker is make relationships or ask for deals.

For a jewelcrafter, it may be finding a farmer who is willing to sell ore to you directly. Usually they are willing to give you a good price for buying all of it. It also keeps that ore from going to your competition. It is a win-win.

Another thing you can do is try to buy out your competitors if they have strange posting patterns.

I have a JC on my server that only deals in red gems. He will post around 40 of each cut, in stacks of 1,2,3,4,and 5. He does not deal in other gems. The other thing he does is instantly undercut down to 125 if red gems are higher.

I sent him a letter to see if he had the other color gems for sale. Apparently he got a ton of ore and prospected it for cheap prior to 4.2. He then vendored everything that wasnt an Inferno Ruby or Carnelia (DOH!).

Well, I am currently trying to work out a deal to buy the rest of his 400 plus red gem stockpile. This should put me in a good postion to make tons of profit if I get them for a nice price. Without asking, he would have just continued as is. Now I may be able to make a nice mint off of those gems.

This ties into the "Know your role and shut your mouth" post a couple of days ago. Had I been a dick to this guy about his tactics, there is no way a deal would have been possible.

What is Your Favorite Gold Trick or Tip?

2011-08-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a way that they really enjoy making gold. This may be because they make a lot of sales, or it may just be plain clever.

My two favorites certainly have to be Jewelcrafting since this is where I make a ton of my gold.

The second for me is recipe flipping. This is a market that a lot of people don't really get fully involved in. I grab very nice underpriced recipes and relist them for significantly higher on a regular basis. I have made at least 50k profit off of flipping cata level recipes alone.

What kind of things do you like to do to make gold?

Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth!

2011-08-02T09:32:00.000-07:00

So, this is a post about whispering your competitors in a hostile or less than friendly way. Don't do it.

Sure, getting undercut is annoying, but it is just the cost of business. What happens when you message someone to be a smartass? You make it personal.

You just turned a competitor into someone who is going to do everything they can to piss you off more and get you out of the market. That is assuming that they are like me.

I am going to make my gold. That is a given. If you are going to be a rude little twat to me, I am going to make you eat a bowl of dick. You will be undercut every chance I get.

There are only a few reasons you should ever talk to your competition:

1) You are wanting to work together.
2) You are just bullshitting and sharing information
3) You want to build a "friendship" so that they will be less cutthroat.

You may notice taht all of these things benefit you...as they should. Never communicate out of anger. You will end up getting more angry because you just revealed to that person how they can really push your buttons.

So as the title says....know you role and shut your mouth. Or lose profits.

Diablo 3: Can Use AH to sell things for REAL MONEY

2011-08-01T08:03:00.001-07:00

From MMO Champion. This is nuts.

What is the Diablo III auction house system?
Acquiring epic new gear for your characters has always been a big part of the Diablo experience. Because of this, players have found a number of different ways to trade and otherwise obtain items both within and outside of the game. Many of these methods were inconvenient and either tedious (for example, repeatedly advertising for a desired trade in Battle.net chat channels and waiting for responses) or unsafe (e.g., giving credit card information to third-party trading sites). With Diablo III, we’re introducing a powerful auction house system that will provide a safe, fun, and easy-to-use way for players to buy and sell the loot they find in the game, such as weapons, armor, and runestones. Two different versions of the auction house will be available in Diablo III: one based on in-game gold, which players acquire through their adventures, and one based on real-world currency.

What’s the difference between the gold-based auction house and the currency-based auction house?
The gold-based auction house uses in-game gold for purchases and sales. With the currency-based auction house, players will be able to conduct these transactions using actual currency from an authorized payment method or from funds that have been added to their Battle.net account. Players can choose to participate in whichever version of the auction house they prefer, on a per-transaction basis.

How does the auction house system work?
Players can open the auction house interface from anywhere in the game to make purchases or list items for sale. Items can be sold from the shared stash (storage shared among all the characters on your Battle.net account) or from any individual character’s inventory. When posting the item, the seller picks whether it will be sold in the gold-based auction house or the currency-based auction house. The item is then held by the auction house system until the listing expires or a purchase is made. Items that are not sold are returned to the seller’s shared stash, and items that are sold are delivered to the winning bidder’s shared stash. In either case, the auction house system will deduct a nominal fixed transaction fee from the seller, the amount of which is determined by whether or not the item was sold (see below). For the currency-based auction house, players will have a few different options for how to pay for item purchases and receive funds for item sales, as discussed elsewhere in this FAQ. There may be differences in how this system will work in different regions of the world. We’ll provide further details at a later date.

How is the transaction fee determined?
A nominal fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. Because the listing portion of the fee is charged even if the item doesn’t sell, it will be in the seller’s interest to list items he or she believes other players will be interested in, and to do so at a competitive price. Specific details related to the transaction fee for the currency-based auction house will vary by region and will be announced at a later date.

Please note that we plan to waive the listing portion of the fee for a limited number of transactions per account. In other words, for these transactions, the seller will only pay a transaction fee if the item is successfully sold, and that fee will not include the listing charge. We’ll have further details on this as well at a later date.

Why are you creating a currency-based version of the auction house?
Our goal with all of our games is to ensure players have a highly enjoyable, rewarding, and secure experience. Acquiring items has always been an important part of the Diablo series, but the previous games have not had a robust, centralized system for facilitating trades, and as a result players have turned to inconvenient and potentially unsafe alternatives, such as third-party real-money-trading organizations. Many of the transactions between players and these organizations led to a poor player experience and countless customer-service issues involving scams and item/account theft, to name a few. To that end, we wanted to create a convenient, powerful, and fully integrated tool to meet the demand of players who wished to purchase or sell items for real-world currency, and who would likely have turned to a less-secure third-party service for this convenience.

How will the currency-based auction house work?
Players will be able to make purchases in the currency-based auction house using a registered form of payment attached to their Battle.net account. As with other popular online-purchase services, players will also have the option to charge up their Battle.net account with a balance of funds that can be drawn from for purchases of any digital product available through Battle.net -- this includes not only auction house items but also things like World of Warcraft subscription time and paid services, to name a few examples. On the flipside, when players sell an item in the currency-based auction house, the proceeds of the sale are deposited into their Battle.net account and can then be used as described above. Note that this process might be different for certain regions; we’ll provide further region-specific details as we get closer to launch.

Can players choose to get cash from currency-based auction house sales, instead of having the proceeds deposited into their Battle.net account?
Yes, as an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

Is the currency-based version of the auction house optional?
Yes, the currency-based auction house is available as an option for players who wish to purchase or sell Diablo III items for real money. Players are also able to buy and sell items through the gold-based auction house, and they can trade items with each other as well through direct character-to-character in-game trading.

Why would I want to pay real money to buy or sell in-game items?
Acquiring items has always been a core part of the Diablo series' appeal. With the previous Diablo games, many players have shown a great interest in buying, selling, or exchanging items for their characters using real-world currency, turning to potentially unsafe avenues to accomplish this goal. The currency-based version of the auction house provides players with an easy-to-use, Blizzard-sanctioned way to collect money for items obtained while playing Diablo III. In addition, it helps protect players from scams and disreputable third-party sites by providing a secure, in-game method to search for and purchase items posted by other players that are a perfect fit for their character and play style.

The currency-based auction house is completely optional. Players who aren't interested in paying real money for items will still be able to rely on items they acquire through their own adventures, and they'll also be able to trade with friends and use the full-featured gold-based auction house.

Can I play on a server without a currency-based version of the auction house?
We want to provide a secure, fun environment for our players to purchase and sell in-game items using gold or real money and have no plans to divide the community. Players are free to participate in the gold-based auction house or the currency-based auction house, or to opt out of using any of the auction houses at all, progressing through Diablo III using only the items they obtain through their own adventures or direct trade with other players.

Does Blizzard plan to post weapons, armor, and other such items for sale in the currency-based version of the auction house?
The currency-based auction house is a place for players to purchase or sell items they’ve obtained within the game. Blizzard does not plan to post items that affect gameplay, such as gear or character-enhancing runestones, for sale in the auction house.

Will Blizzard sell anything directly through the auction house?
We don't have any plans at this time to post items for sale in the auction house.

Does the currency-based auction house signify a shift in Blizzard’s business and revenue model?
We’ve always tailored our business models to match what we’ve felt would be most appropriate and effective for each game and in each region, and that’s the case with Diablo III as well. The item-based nature of Diablo gameplay has always lent itself to an active trade-based ecosystem, and a significant part of this trade has been conducted through unsecure third-party organizations. This has led to numerous customer-service and game-experience issues that we’ve needed to account for. Our primary goal with the Diablo III auction house system is for it to serve as the foundation for a player-driven economy that’s safe, fun, and accessible for everyone.

What’s Blizzard’s cut?
As with other online auction sites and real-world auction houses, our fee structure will vary by region. However, we plan to collect a nominal fixed transaction fee for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. The listing portion of the fee, which helps encourage sensible listing prices and discourage the mass posting of items that are very low quality or would be of little interest to other players, will be waived for a limited number of transactions per account. For players who opt to have the proceeds of their auction house sales go to their third-party payment service account instead of to their Battle.net account, Blizzard will collect a separate “cash-out” fee. Specific details regarding these fees will be announced at a later date.

Why would I even want to use the gold-based auction house?
We recognize that not all players would prefer or have the means to participate in the currency-based auction house, and it was important to us to provide these players with a full-featured alternative.

Can we buy gold from the currency-based auction house?
Players will be able to buy and sell gold through the currency-based auction house at whatever the current market price is, as established by the player community.

If I no longer need an item I bought in the auction house, can I relist it in the auction house?
Yes. Once you've purchased an item you can do anything with it that you could if you had acquired it through your own adventures, whether that be using it yourself, or, after a cool-down period, trading it to another character or relisting it on either the gold-based or currency-based auction house. In fact, you can generally do any combination of these things -- for example, you can purchase an item in the auction house, use it for a while, and then relist it or trade it to another character. Aside from certain quest items, there will be very few (if any) items that will be “soulbound” to your character and therefore untradable. Please note that the duration of the cool-down period mentioned above will be discussed at a later date.

AUCTION HOUSE FUNCTIONALITY

What items can be traded in Diablo III?
Nearly everything that drops on the ground, including gold, can be traded with other players directly or through the auction house system. Aside from certain quest items, there will be very few (if any) items that will be “soulbound” to your character and therefore untradable. We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date.

What is "smart searching"?
When players launch the auction house interface, they’ll be able to select any Diablo III character associated with their Battle.net account. The "smart search" feature will assess which item slots have available upgrades and will sort items available in the auction house based on which upgrades would be most beneficial to the character. You can also search for specific stats to match the requirements of a particular character build.

How does bidding work?
Players will be able to place a current bid as well as a maximum bid if they wish to engage in automatic bidding. In addition, they’ll be able to check the status of their bids on the "Currently Winning" page and the "Outbid" page in the auction house interface.

Can I buyout items that I want to purchase immediately?
Yes, the Diablo III auction houses will support a buyout feature as well as standard bids.

How do I pay for items?
For the gold-based auction house, purchases will be made using in-game gold. For the currency-based auction house, players can make purchases using a registered form of payment attached to their Battle.net account. As with other popular online-purchase services, players will also have the option to charge up their Battle.net account with a balance of funds that can be drawn from for purchasing items in the currency-based auction house. Note that this process might be different for certain regions; we’ll provide further region-specific details as we get closer to launch.

How do I receive the items I’ve won?
After winning an auction, the item will be available to pick up through the built-in auction house interface in the Diablo III client. Players will then be able to immediately send that item to their shared stash (storage shared among all the characters on a Battle.net account) or repost the item in the auction house after a cool-down period. The duration of the cool-down period will be discussed at a later date.

How do I sell items?
From the auction house interface, players will be able to select items from their shared stash or from a specific character's inventory. They will then be able to post items for sale by listing a starting bid and buyout price.

How do I cash out from the currency-based auction house?
As an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

Will buying or selling items in the auction house reveal my identity?
No. All player transactions in the gold-based and currency-based auction houses will be anonymous, and neither your real name nor your character name will be revealed to other players.

Will there be a mobile or Web-based auction house?
We're always on the lookout for opportunities to enhance the game experience and keep our community connected to our games through the Web or mobile devices. However, we do not have any plans to share along those lines at this time.

When will this be available for testing?
We'll share more information on our auction house testing plans as we get closer to launch.

REGIONAL AUCTION HOUSE DETAILS

Which regions will have currency-based auction house support?
We plan to roll out the currency-based version of the auction house in as many regions as possible with the launch of Diablo III. In regions where the currency-based auction house will not be available, players will still have access to a gold-based auction house. We'll share more details in the future.

Will there be separate auction houses in each region? Will I be allowed to bid on items from players outside my own region?
Due to various factors, including technology, language, and currency, there will be multiple separate auction houses serving different player communities around the world. We’ll share specific details on how the auction houses will work for each region as we get closer to launch.

If I live in Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia, what server will I play Diablo III on?
As with StarCraft II, players who purchase the Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia version of Diablo III will have their own regional servers, offering lower latency and more action during peak hours. While we encourage players to play on these servers, we recognize that many have longstanding friendships with North American players and would like to continue playing with them. Because of this, we're again giving Australia/New Zealand/ Southeast Asia gamers access to both regions' servers so they can choose where they'd prefer to play.

How does this impact the items I have purchased in the auction house?
Auction house purchases are bound to the servers in the region in which they're bought. Any items acquired on the Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia servers, in-game or otherwise, are bound to those servers and are not transferrable to the North American servers (and vice versa). Please keep this in mind when making purchases in the auction house.

What currencies will be available? What currency will items in the auction house be viewed in? Can players purchase items using local credit cards or bank accounts?
Our goal is to make the auction house experience in each region as seamless as possible for players, and we are currently exploring various currency and payment options to help achieve that goal. We’ll provide further details as we get closer to launch.

AUCTION HOUSE GAMEPLAY ISSUES

Will I be able to use third-party mods to track auction prices?
For a variety of gameplay and security reasons, we will not be supporting bots or mods in Diablo III, and they’ll be expressly prohibited by our terms of use for the game.

Can Hardcore-mode characters use the currency-based auction house?
No. Hardcore characters will only have the option to buy and sell items together with other Hardcore characters via a separate "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house; they will not be able to use the currency-based auction house. Hardcore mode is designed as an optional experience for players who enjoy the sense of constant peril that comes with the possibility of permanent death for a character. All of a Hardcore character’s items are forever lost upon that character’s death, so to avoid the risk of a player spending real money on items that could then be permanently lost when the character dies, we decided restrict the use of the currency-based auction house in Hardcore mode.

If my character dies in Hardcore mode, will I lose the items that I purchased in the "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house for that character?
Yes. Again, Hardcore-mode characters will only have access to a "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house, not the currency-based auction house, and will not be able to trade with non-Hardcore characters. Hardcore is an optional mode designed for players who enjoy playing with the risk of permanently losing their character if the character dies, and that includes the items they acquired with that character.

Can I just buy the most powerful items and breeze through the game?
Items will be level-restricted, meaning your character won't be able to use an item until he or she is at the appropriate level for that item.

AUCTION HOUSE CUSTOMER SUPPORT

What happens if a player does not receive a purchased item?
The auction process is automated, but if a player purchases an item and for some reason does not receive it, he or she will be able to contact our customer service team to look into the issue.

What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered?
It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the currency-based auction house.

Someone bought an item on my account without my permission. Can I get a refund?
Please note that account sharing will be forbidden in Diablo III's Terms of Use. In cases of compromise, our customer service team will look into the situation and determine the appropriate course of action.

I accidentally lost or dropped an item I just purchased -- can I get a refund?
No. After a purchase is made, players will be responsible for what they do with the item.

How will you address bots or cheaters?
We take cheating very seriously, and we've designed Diablo III and Battle.net to include measures to detect and prevent unfair play. In addition, we will have anti-cheating policies in place and will take action to address any issues as they arise.

Deep Undercutting

2011-07-29T05:54:00.001-07:00

Deep undercutting is a method used on the Auction House of continually undercutting by large amounts. This is to discourage AH campers.

This method can work very well against campers asuming you can get below their posting threshold.

When you deep undercut just for the sake of deep undercutting....you are a douche.

I hate when people in the gem market undercut gems by 50-100 gold. It is annoying and dumb.

Sorry, Im just hating. I am a nickel and dime undercutter. I undercut everything by 1 silver generally. I can't stand deep undercutters. I will still undercut them, but they are cutting into my profits. On occasion, I will buy them out and reset the market. This is in the hopes that they dont have too much stockpiled.

I wonder if deep undercutters dislike nickel and dime undercutters as much as we dislike them.

Gold Making Meme

2011-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so there are always meme's running around WoW blogs (if that is what they are actually called). I have a few questions for other people around here. If you want. feel free to post it on your blog and answer the questions there.

1) What is the most gold you have ever owned?

I am currently at my high amount of gold at around 1.3 million.

2) What is the most gold you have made in a single day.

I actually havent kept an accurate count on this, but I know it is somewhere between 30-40k as I have several 30k plus days for sales.

3) What is your favorite market?

For me it is currently jewelcrafting with enchanting coming in second. Back in the day, it was inscription but I find it much less profitable for the time spent.

4) What is you favorite "unconventional" way to make gold.

I would have to say that flipping recipes of all kinds would be my answer here. I make a nice mint grabbing stuff for cheap and flipping. Low level blue items would come in second here.

5) What frivolous things do you spend your gold on?

I dont spend a whole lot on my self, but I do have a vial on my main. For my wife however.....I have gotten here a vial of the sands, two mammoths, and a whole crap ton of pets.

Feel free to answer the questions in the comments or post it up on your blog and tag someone else to answer if you like.

Auction House Tip: Resetting Prices

2011-07-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a quick tip and based off of my experience in my gem market. Different markets will vary.

I tried to reset the Inferno Ruby prices on my server this weekend to 250 cut per gem. I bought a ton between 95-110 gold. Unfortunately there is one guy in the gem market who seems to deal only in red gems. He undercut all of my auctions down to 125 within minutes of coming online.

I was hoping that he would run out, but he appears to have a never ending supply of inferno rubies.

On the other hand, one of my competitors (the only one that I actually have converstations with) pretty much reset the orange and purple gem markets. Most cuts are going for more than inferno rubies are right now.

What I am saying is make sure that you know your market and competitors. You will make a lot more money in the long run. I will make a small profit on the 40k in inferno rubies that I bought, but it will take me probably a week to unload all of them.

Reader Request Answered

2011-07-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

"Dear Darraxus, Sorry about the post in this section I didnt know where to put it. xD Well my friend and I are currently leveling as druids for RaF and we are doing instances. I specced as resto at level 10 and he went balance. I found myself healing really stellar till we got to Strat. (I have always hated Strat.) Anyway i found myself to the point where the tank would pull too many mobs and would take way to much damage for me to keep up with the damage. He may have just qued for the highest level dungeon that he could and then the mobs were to high of level so he took a lot of damage, I dont know. But my healing was really good before then and then *blehhh* horrible healing. Do you think you could help me? Thanks Kelluid (level 49 Resto Druid)"

Well, I am no Druid expert, but have done quite a lot of healing on mine. The first thing I would ask is "What is your rotation"?

My rotation may not be optimal, but I always put up three lifeblooms on my tank and a rejuvenation. I will then use nourish/healing touch to refresh the lifenbloom as needed during the fight. If he takes a big splash of damage, swiftmend is your friend.

I think that the main thing to do is to utilize your hots. I used to use Regrowth a lot more than I once did, but generally only use it when I have a clearcasting proc at this point.

The other issue of course is the tank. Once you start getting into the 30s and 40s, tanks should actually be....tanks! They should not be tanking with two handers unless they are a Druid in bear form. They may also be biting off more than they can chew.

A lot of people think that you can faceroll through low level instance with any gear/spec with no problems. This is mostly true, but a fury warrior or ret paladin "tank" can mess up you instance flow real quick.

So, utilize all of your heals in the most comfortable way for you.....make sure you have some kinds of healing addon (I use healbot for one click heals), and make sure your tank isnt a fuckwit just pretending to be a tank for quick instance queues.

If anyone else has any questions for Salty Uncle Darraxus, feel free to leave a comment.

Ore-pocalypse

2011-07-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Where has all the ore gone. There is barely any available on my server and it is going for 50ish gold a stack. It is very difficuly to keep up with gem demand when you dont have any gems.

I wonder if there was a mass bot banning recently. Normally there would be pages of ore on the AH and plenty of competition. Recently there are maybe one or two pages total to choose from.

The one good thing coming out of this is that orange and purple gems have gone up in price and I am actually selling some for more than I am selling rubies.

I NEED MORE ORE.

Just an update on my weekend. Dailies. That is all. Lots of dailies.

Maintenance....WHY DO I ALWAYS FORGET

2011-07-19T10:08:00.001-07:00

Seriously. Every damn Tuesday morning. I log on. Maintenance. Crap. Guess I will watch some music videos or something on Youtube before I head to work.

So, for this maintenance period, I would like to share a bit of a gold making tip with you guys.

Recipe: Undermine Clam Chowder was one of the recipes that went bye bye when Cataclysm hit. Well, they put it back in the game last patch. Not a lot of people seemed to notice.

You can now get this recipe in the Badlands in limited supply.

I have sold 3 or 4 for around 1000 gold each since the patch came out. I have gotten a bit of competition a time or two, but otherwise the market has mostly been mine. Definately something worth looking into on your server.

Weekend Update

2011-07-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

What did I do this weekend. A lot of frickin dailies. Yeah.

Beside that, I also did quite a lot of auctioneering.

I bought out the entire inferno ruby market and reset it to 250 gold. One of my competitors came in and moved it down to 200. Then another posted a monster wall at 125. I bought them all for 85-110 gold, so I will make profit on them, but the second guy is a douchebag. I made sure I was lower than him for the rest of the day.

I also healed a Heroic with my Druid which was actually pretty decent.

We got Heroic Deadmines, which I find to be a pretty enjoyable instance. We got through the first couple of bosses on one shot. It took us about 5 tries to get down the stupid robot boss. We got killed by an add every time we wiped. The mage got kicked because he was doing around 7k dps. I think the real problem was that he was getting killed constantly.

We went on to one shot the rest of the bosses. I got a pair of feral boots for my trouble.

These firelands dailies are going to take forever.

You turn in the 20 Marks of the World Tree of unlock the Firelands.

You turn in 150 to two different factions to unlock the next part.

Then after you do that, they ask you to turn in 125 more to three different vendors! FFS!

On a postive note, my wife is almost done with the Argent Tournament which means no more jousting for me WOOHOO!

How was your weekend?

ITS FRIDAY, FRIDAY, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY!

2011-07-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah, yeah, yeah

7PM, getting home from work
Gotta log on, gotta update my patch
Gottaget buff food, gotta have fortune cookies
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the Firelands
Gotta catch my Gryphon, I see my guildies (My guildies)

Kickin’ in the Mammoth
Sittin’ in vial of sands
Gotta make my mind up
Which mount can I take?

It’s Raid Day, Raid Day
Gotta kill bosses on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to some DKP, DKP
Raid Day, Raid Day
Not gonna wipe on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to some DKP

Pullin it, pullin it (Yeah)
Wiping it, Wiping it (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to some DKP

7:45, we’re pulling the first boss
Burning so fast, I want time the boss to die
Loot, Loot, think about Loot
You know what it is
I got this, you got this
My friend is int he fire
I got this, you got this
Now you blow it

Kickin’ in the Mammoth
Sittin’ in vial of sands
Gotta make my mind up
Which mount can I take?

[Chorus]

It’s Raid Day, Raid Day
Gotta kill bosses on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to some DKP, DKP
Raid Day, Raid Day
Not gonna wipe on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to some DKP

Pullin it, pullin it (Yeah)
Wiping it, Wiping it (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to some DKP

[Bridge]

Yesterday was Patch day, Patch Day
Today i-is Raid Day, Raid Day (WINNING)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna pull a boss today

Tomorrow is another raid
And more raids comes after...wards
I don’t want this raid ID to end

[Rap Verse]

D-W, Darraxus the Warrior
So chillin’ in the mammoth (In the mammoth)
In the vial of sands(In the vial of sands)
I’m pulling, shield slamming (Yeah, yeah)
New phase, switchin’ adds
Wit’ a Priest up on my side (Woo!)
(C’mon) Passin’ by is a Resto Druid in front of me
Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream
Check my time, it’s enrage time, it’s a raid wipe
We gonna corpse run, c’mon, c’mon, y’all

[Chorus]

It’s Raid Day, Raid Day
Gotta kill bosses on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to some DKP, DKP
Raid Day, Raid Day
Not gonna wipe on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to some DKP

Pullin it, pullin it (Yeah)
Wiping it, Wiping it (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to some DKP

It’s Raid Day, Raid Day
Gotta get loots on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the Raid End, Raid End
Raid Day, Raid Day
Bosses down on Raid Day
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the Raid End

Pullin it, pullin it (Yeah)
Wiping it, Wiping it (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to some DKP

Do You Deal with Guild Drama?

2011-07-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

I dont.

I joined my current guild at the beginning of Wrath. Since I have joined, it has been pretty much the same core group of people with a couple of additions here and there. I don't really do a lot of participating in guild activities, so maybe there is drama, but I havent really seen it.

My guild history starts way back in Vanilla WoW with my first guild. It was called The Red Dragon Clan. I first joined it at around level 20 when the guild started. It was a fun time. We went out to Loch Modan and shot off red fireworks to celebrate. I dont remember a whole lot about the guild, but I did keep in touch with one guy off and on over the years after the guild broke up. He helped me out with free health potions when I was a young warrior that couldnt kill anything.

I then joined a guild called The Drunken Fist. It was a pretty casual guild, and I ended up leaving it for a guild called House IIMKI (If it moves kill it).

I had some of my most fun times in this guild. We ran 5 mans daily and I made a lot of friends who I still keep in touch with today. Well, one day during BC, one of the officers in the guild basically rage kicked everyone who was not an original founding member over a loot dispute (level 40 something being dragged along in the horseman event rolled need on and won the helmet over the level 70 warrior).

From there, most of the guild who got kicked out reformed in a guild called Reborn. I was with this guild the rest of BC and into Wrath. We had great times raiding and eventually got into the Black Temple. When Wrath came out, the guild started to die. People were not leveling at the same pace. The ones who wanted to raid RIGHT NOW jumped ship. I hung on for as long as possible, but it was apparent that the guild was dead.

I then joined some of my former guildies who joined my current guild...MeleeStorm. This is the guild I have stayed in during that time. A lot of the people that I joined the guild with have moved on to other guilds or have quit the game. I still toil on. It could be that I dont notice that there is guild drama because I mostly keep to myself these day. Or it could be that the core of the guild just generally enjoys each others company. I am glad I dont have to deal with drama. Drama is for real life....not a video game.

Holy Dailies Batman!

2011-07-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

Good god these dailies take up a lot of time. I am running them on two toons currently with my wife. I do all of the Hyjal Dailies including the flying jousting one.

On top of that, my wife is only able to complete two more dailies by the end of the day. She is doing all of the Hyjal dailes as well as the Argent Tournament dailies. I am having to do all of the jousting dailies for the Argent Tournament. I am so sick of jousting having previously grinded out the Crusader title on Darraxus.

There is one thing that bothers me about some dailies and most quests in general. Why wouldnt the quest giver just tell you everythinh they need at one time. Seriously. Cant you ask me to kill 10 orcs AND their chief at the same time. Why do I kill 10 orcs. Come back turn in. Go collect 10 fanny packs out of their camp. Ummmm....ok. Turn it in. Ok, now kill their Chief. Seriously dude....you couldnt tell me that before. Come back. Turn in. Thank you Warrior. Now I need you to bomb their fortress and take them out once and for all with this Gryphon carrying nukes. WTF MAN....I COULD HAVE DONE THAT FIRST AND SAVED SOME TIME.

Fuck you quest givers.

Selling Kits for Gold

2011-07-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article on the Consortium Forums about selling profession leveling kits. The idea is that you basically provide all of the required materials for a character to go from 1-525 in a given profession and charge them around double what you paid for the materials. Obviously the article is much more detailed, but you would have to read it.

This got me thinking about selling other kinds of "kits".

The first one I thought of was a "leveling" kit. This could come in two different ways.

The first one would be a gear kit that would get them from their beginning roots to the level cap. I think that this kind of kit would be best sold to aspiring tanks. Tank gear can be hard to come by while you are leveling. Having a Blacksmith could, you would be able to craft a lot of the gear.

The second one would be a powerleveling kit. You would charge a fee per hour....say 2000 gold per person. You would grab the lowbie and give them a ride to the instance of choice (assuming you have a mount capable of carrying two people). Time starts when you arrive. They pay you the gold, you put the looting on free for all and kill the crap out of everything in site. This would work best with a pair of refer a friend toons I think. For 4k, they will probably both end up gaining around 20 level between them.

The last idea for a kit I had was a twink kit. You make or buy all of the materials you would need to give someone a starting twink kit. You could even do some twink dungeon runs with said twink for gold. I think that there could be a decent market from something like this if it was advertised properly. What do you think?

Weekend Update

2011-07-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome back after another weekend that went by too fast.

I got quite a bit done over the weekend although it felt like I was mostly busy keeping gems up in the auctionhouse. I made about 50k in sales between Saturday and Sunday, and I need to get back to prospecting the 400 stacks of elementium I picked up on the cheap.

I finally started playing my level 80 Horde Warrior a bit over the weekend as well. I ran some quests over in Hyjal and then decided I wanted to start leveling his JC. I am currently at 478 and picked up my first Cataclysm cut.

I actually ran a Heroic with my wife. She really wants to get the pug and agreed to run one on her Druid. She picked up two upgrades and did decent DPS considering her gear level. Speaking of DPS....someone told my sister that you should not be doing regular Heroics unless you can do at least 13k dps.....lol wut? Some people are fucking retarded.

Dailies.....Im am sick of them. Did all of my Hyjal dailies on Darraxus and unlocked them on my Druid finally. My wife did a ton a dailies. All of the Hyjal Dailies on her Druid and Pally as well as all of the Argent Tournament Dailies on both of those toons....the only problem is that I am the one having to do the damn jousting quests. I am good at jousting, but I hate it. It feels like wasted time. She want the mana wyrmling, so hopefully we are not too far off (just need to get exalted with the Silver Covenant).

I also picked up herbing and mining on my level 70 Shaman this weekend. I plan on making him a second Alchemist/JC and figured I could gater the mats and gain XP at the same time. I got my herbing over 200 and my mining to around 125 or so. I have collected a crap ton of mats.

That is pretty much it. How was your weekend?

Darraxus' Comprehensive Guide to Auctioneering!

2011-07-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Download Auctioneer or Auctionator
Step 2: Sell anything that isnt vendor trash on the Auctionhouse
Step 3: ????????
Step 4: Profit!

Seriously. An easy way to make gold it to use the in game auctionhouse. It may seem dumb, but there are people out there who either don't like it or don't know what it is.

I have a friend who never used the AH unless it was for something that could sell for a very large chunk of gold. He didn't like posting things for whatever reason.

On a kinda related note.....trade chat sucks. If you try to make fair market value on an expensive item, prepare to be flamed. "12k for that!!! I will give you 1k and you would be lucky to get that much."

I see shit like this all the time. People think they are being trade chat heroes or something. They are similar to the people who undercut to less than material costs because selling it for too much is "wrong".

Another trade chat related issue for me.....people asking for price checks on items. I normally wont give them a price check, but will ask them what they want to sell the item for. If it is a deal, I will snatch it up. If it isnt, I will try to negotiate or give them a ballpark number. I don't know how many times I see someone ask for a price check (or barking to sell for that matter) where someone comes back with the VENDOR price for the item. People really are idiots.

Anyways, move along. These are not the tips you are looking for. Move along. Move along. :p

What is Your Play Style?

2011-07-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

I think in the course of playing WoW, I have done just about everything at one time or another.

In Vanilla, I was an incredible noob turned dungeon tank. I had around 100 HKs, one character at level 60, and my next highest alt was around level 20 (my Hunter).

In BC, I really did a bit of everything. I leveled three characters to the level 70 cap (Warrior, Warlock, Paladin). I raided everything up to and including parts of Black Temple. I did a lot of PvP and Arena on my Warlock. I started getting into gold making a bit by selling terocone and netherweb spider silk. I also ran tons of Dungeons. Karazhan was a weekly even that I led every Saturday night. We were down to 1.5 hour clears before the big patch at the end came out.

In Wrath, I focuses on Dungeons and Raids. I mostly pugged my raids as I did not have time on guild raid days to join them. I also got pretty deeply into gold making with the inscription market. I hit the old gold cap during Wrath.

In Cataclysm, I have been a gold maker. Sure, I have done a little bit of everything, but Dungeons are much less enjoyable than they once were and many of my friends have left the game.

So, at one point or another, I have been just about every kind of player. At this point, I guess I am a hardcore gold maker and a very casual dungeoneer.

What do you do with your play time?

Making Gold on a Roleplaying Server

2011-07-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

I play on a roleplaying server. Roleplaying servers can be a bit different than you standard server when it comes to making gold.

On roleplaying servers, there seems to be a premium on vanity, and not when it comes to raid gear.

On RP server, things that make a good outfit are highly sought after.

You can sell a lot of these items at a very significant mark up.

What kinds of items am I talking about? Shirts, pants, dresses, hats, and other miscellaneous headgear.

Tops: If you are a tailor, there are quite a few of these that sell well. I find that the ones that sell the best are the Swashbuckler shirts. I dont know if it is the name or what they look like, but they sell of a fairly regular basis. Other fairly popular shirts include the Black Silk Shirt (perhaps because it is black) and Pink Mageweave shirts. One that I have sold for 120-150 gold each are the vendor "shirts" that you buy from the first aid vendor in Dalaran. There is a anticeptic dressing and wound dressing (or something close to that). They look like you took some wounds and are bandaged up. Nice touch depending on what kind of roleplaying you are doing. I also sell the Tuxedo shirt on a fairly regular basis.

Dresses sell on a fairly regular basis as well. The wedding dress and the one of the black dresses sell pretty well. I have also grabbed and sold a few of the Hanbocks from the vendor in Moonglade.

Pants: The only pants I generally sell are the Tuxedo pants. If you sell these, you stand a chance of selling the rest of the set if it is on the auctionhouse.

Head: There are several good options for the head slot. I sell the Admiral's hat for between 25-75 gold. They cost very little to make. Engineering is also a pretty decent profession to make head pieces. You can make a couple of different kinds of goggles which may or may not sell. As a Jewelcrafter, you can make some pretty cool monacles. I have only sold one of the amber ones, but it sold for 1500 gold.

If it looks cool, it can sell....especially on an RP server.

Weekend Update

2011-07-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome back from the Holliday blog readers!

I did get to play some WoW this weekend with my wife and had some great fun.

First thing we did is get both of her characters caught up to the Hyjal dailies. She had already finished the zone on both of her toons, so there was no problem. I on the other hand am having to slog through the zone on my Druid to catch up.

The reason for doing the Hyjal dailies? Not the epic loots. She is doing it to get the pets that you receive at the end of it.

We also ran her through Underbog a bunch of times to get her exalted with Sporregar on her Paladin for another pet. To be honest, she ran me through it a bunch of times as I saw this as a nice opportunity to gain a couple of levels on my then level 62 bank alt rogue. I wore my banking clothes and just looted Hibiscus for her. I ended up at 64 and out of rested XP.

We also got in a little bit of time on out lowbie priests. We are going through some of the Kalimdor quest areas as we have never done them. I always end up going the Dward quest route or the Human quest route after a starting area.

There was also a nice chunk of gold made over the weekend. Gems and enchants are still going very well. I have been selling the Greater Intellect to Cloak enchant for 600 a pop and going through around 5 per day.

I have also been flipping items as always. I picked up the Strength to Bracers enchant for 150 gold and a Shadowspirit cut for 25 gold. They should net me around 8k.

Ore prices are starting to fall back in line with what they were pre patch, which will be good. Hopefully it continues to fall.

How was your weekend?

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hope you have a wonderful Holliday with friends and family! If not, enjoy the fireworks in WoW.

Weekend Gold Tip

2011-07-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

This is the first weekend after the new patch. You may have noticed sales slowing a bit. Not to worry!

The weekend warriors will be logging on in force this weekend and you can make a killing. Make sure to be well stocked on gems, enchants, leg armors, spellthreads, belt buckles, and maybe even vanity pets.

Good luck and happy gold making.

RAF Idea

2011-07-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

So, they are doing all kinds of things to get new players to join the game.

20 bucks for Vanilla and BC now. Trial accounts do not end. RAF up to level 80.

I have an idea that would get them some more money. RAF between two existing account.

Say it costs 10 bucks for 3 months, which is what it probably cost someone to just purchase vanilla.

You and a friend link your account. You now get to level characters on the account that you want to. You dont have to start some account that is never going to be used again.

10 bucks from each player.....sounds like a good deal for Blizz. I would certainly sign up for it with my wife.

There are characters I would love to level, but dont want to spend the time leveling. This would make it so much easier.

I think that Blizzard should get on this ideas ASAP.

Patch 4.2 So Far

2011-06-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, well the patch is brand new and I just have a few observations.

1) The new firelands questline was pretty cool. It is nice to have a few new dailies. I am going to need to get some of my other characters up to the regrowth in Hyjal

2) I should have stockpiled more. I actually would have it my materials werent already flying off the shelf every single day. I ran out of Inferno Rubies within two hours of logging on. I am running low on ember topaz. All other gems I am doing ok on. Unforunately, elementium ore is being listed at 75 gold a pop at the moment, which is above what I am actually willing to pay.

3) Gem prices are already starting to slowly creep down. Strike while the Iron is hot.

4) It is nice to be able to pick up some decent epic gear. I grabbed my T11 legs and gloves on Darraxus. I also got the epic quest cloak, so three nice upgrades in a very short time.

What have been your impressions so far?

How Much Gold Do You Have?

2011-06-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

Pretty easy question.

I ask because while reading WoWInsider, it was stated that most players have under 1k gold.....huh?

That seems incredibly low.

Making gold in WoW is easy no matter what you decide to do. If you like farming....gold. If you like questing....gold. If you like instances....gold. PvP won't make you anything, but as a PvPer you dont really suffer a lot of durability damage.

You can make over 10k JUST LEVELING.

Granted, people are going to spend it on different things. Professions, enchants, gems. There are plenty things to spend gold on and just as many things to make gold from.

So, I ask again. How much gold do you have at any one time?

Rep Grinds are Golden

2011-06-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

Most everyone complains about rep grinds. They are long and boring for the most part. One thing that nobody seems to bring up is how great they can be for making gold.

Lets take Cenarion rep in Outland. You can get this rep from quests obviously, but I have another great way to do it.

Go to regular Underbog. Kill everything in there. Most importantly, make sure you are picking up the Sanguine Hibiscus. You can get over 30 per run and they sell on my server for 10 gold per item. Besides the Hibiscus, you will get a decent number of boss drops and tons of vendor trash for gold. You will get greens to disenchant. You will get netherweave cloth to send to your tailor and craft bags.

You can run the regular version for rep up until revered.

After that, run the Heroic versions of all three instances. My favorites are Underbog (for the reason listed above) and Steam Vaults. You will get Coilfang Armaments in Steamvaults which you can either use for Rep yourself, or put them on the Auctionhouse for another chunk of change.

Another rep grind that I recently did was the Timbermaw rep. It probably took me an hour total. I did all of the quests available, killed mobs until I was almost revered and then turned in 10 stacks of feathers to hit exalted. In this area there are several mithril nodes if you are a minor. I also managed to pick up 6 stacks of Mageweave cloth which I will turn into shirts later.

You can make very good gold and get these things out of the way at the same time. The gold per hour isnt great, but it is at least a fun way to do it!