Macrotransactions

Massively had a post yesterday which really caught my eye. It's a well written article about paying for Power Leveling but through Blizzard. You can read it here. I truly think everyone should look it over.

In summary, it gives an example that Blizzard could use to help people get to the new content and also not have to grind out 1-60 anymore. These next few exerts explain his points very clearly and are well thought out.

"Some of the best experiences WoW can give you are the ones where you and three or four friends play together in a static group. However, all of my friends (myself included) have played out the original content. We would only be interested in coming back to Azeroth in the event that we could start with a level 60 character and jump straight into the Burning Crusade content.

So why not offer separate servers for players interested in spending 20 or 30 bucks on a new level 60 character, as Mr. Zenke suggested?"
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"I can hear all the people who've spent tons of time playing World of Warcraft complaining about this. "What about all the players who've invested all this time in getting to max level?" are the kind of arguments I expect. Well, what about them? It's not as if potential players were going to grind up so they could come and raid or PvP with those characters. You're not losing out on us having our own sever to play on.

Sooner or later most people are going to stop playing WoW, so it's not as if time spent playing is any less meaningless in relative terms. What matters most is experiencing something fun with friends. Nobody is forcing anyone to pay 20 or 30 bucks to get a level 60 on a special server. Everyone can still grind up to level 60. There are just some who would prefer not to, which isn't all that different from how things are now."

And I could imagine that all the people he's talking about are the teenagers who pay their monthly fee via lunch money, chores, or pleading their parents (yeah, I said it - go ahead a rip me a new one). However, I still think that most of the complainers of paying real money for virtual goods are these teenagers. I don't see a 30 year old complaining that someone would want to throw down $20 or $30 to skip content on a server dedicated to that service. It would be the people who can't afford that (i.e. teenagers) who will come out in numbers against it.

It happens in real life too with another demographic: Senior citizens who cannot afford tax increases will go to the polls against a town budget which raises their taxes. And they come out in numbers! That one gets turned down. Then, once the Education / School Sports side of the budget is threated to be cut if the second budget is turned down, the mothers and fathers of school children go out and vote.

Getting back to the article, I believe Blizzard should throw up a few servers, one for PVP, PVE, RP and RP-PVP, that have payable resources. Not only will it be more money for Blizzard but also for those players who want to experience the new content. My father is still at L50 and really wants to get to Outland. However, whenever I call him up and ask if he wants to level his Hunter a bit, he tells me he started a new character. My father would be the perfect candidate to use the payable servers. He, such as myself, don't mind throwing money into something which we enjoy. Golfers pay $1000+ for a yearly course membership and another $700 for clubs, balls, and other accessories. Movie buffs spend $30+ a week on DVDs. People will spend their money on what they enjoy doing. And, if they enjoy trying out new classes at a high level, then so be it and let them do it.

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I just wanted to clarify that I'm not picking on teenage age group here. I'm sure there are adults who also feel that way (and vise versa). I just went for the majority of players in my example.

New Mount Enchants Confirmed

MMO-Champion is giving hour by hour updates about the new patch 2.4.2. And, they have confirmed that there are Mount enchants! At least, in the code. Your usual trinkets are now going to turn into specific mount enchants to one mount in your inventory.

They have said that the old trinkets have not yet disappeared. This will probably change in a PTR patch. In my opinion, I don't like it. I'm a mount-a-holic. Aticus has a horse, a ram, tiger, talbuk, and a normal flying mount. To enchant just one would be a waste of money. However, I can see that it would be much more helpful to have a trinket spot open.

This is a small post so I will be updating from time to time over the next few days.

Update - Thursday, 8:29AM

Portals and Teleports to Thereamore and Stonard are in fact on the PTRs. Could this be our way to Northrend? I think so!

Wrath Alpha Screenshots Leaked

Matt from World Of Blogcraft posted some leaked pictures of the Wrath Alpha. These are not screenshots because Blizzard is smart and disabled the button. However, this guy took these pictures from his digital camera. The quality isn't that good but you can make it out.

Now, could these be fake? Of course. The maps seem real - not the dwarf hairstyles.

The one that makes me ponder is the picture of the Undead Death Knight. If it is fake, kudos to the person who made it. However, if it is real, I looks like there will be more Hero Classes. Personally, I believe there's more to the Hero Classes than Blizzard is letting us know. I think they will make a whole set of Hero Classes and not just the one DK.

The picture shows the Death Knight slot under a Hero Class tab. There are also 5 other boxes with grey keys in them. This could mean that there are more classes on release or it could mean they are locked out until a later date. I know we need to do a quest to unlock the Death Knight. I'm guessing that at the completion of this quest, we will get a key that matches the grey keys in the picture.

This is all speculation of course but it's fun to throw ideas out there.

**EDIT** - 12:34AM

After a closer look at the DK picture, it seems like a fake. The Axe is overlapping the character select frame and the left foot of the Undead male is overlapping the name box. Plus, it might be my eyes but it seems like the name box is smaller than normal. Also, the DK info box looks fishy... it's all blocky.

**EDIT 2** - 11:12am Monday

The website has taken down the Undead Death Knight picture.

Blogbraft has a flicker of the original here.

Gear Reset Not As Bad As Burning Crusade

**UPDATE**
Aticus hit Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive. (Click the picture to get a very nice detailed screenshot)

Yesterday, Bornakk, a Community Manager on the Warcraft forums confirmed that the gear reset which took place in the Burning Crusade will be different when Wrath comes out. He stated...

"Players and items will have an increase in their stats/items that goes along with leveling to 80, it will just be a little more consistent when compared to The Burning Crusade. What I mean by this is the way items are working right now will be closer to the new items you get in Wrath of the Lich King and it isn't like you will see an item with double the usual amount of stamina from your first quest."

In other words, if you have a chest piece with 50 stamina and 25 intellect, it won't double to 100 stamina and 50 intellect right at 71. It will progress slower all the way to 80. This is also nice because now your epic gear from BC arenas, battlegrounds, and raids will still be viable. Now, I had the level 60 GM PVP set from old world and that lasted me until level 68-70 (in which Season 1 replaced it). Hopefully, everyone with Season 1 now will be able to keep that gear until level 78-80. If I had to guess, it should stay like that.

Also, going back to Bornakk's statement, if this is true then your new raid gear won't necessarily be instantly replaced. A suggestion: If you have full season 1, don't bother setting season 2 gear once it drops to the battlegrounds. It'll just be a waste of marks and honor. Save it up for level 80 gear.

A Mage Update: Because both of our servers are really close to Phase 4, we've decided to put off the Mage leveling until next week or the week after. I know I want my title... like... really bad! And he wants just to hit Exalted (I'm only 2 rounds of dailies to go before Exalted). Lore-wise, I think the Shattered Sun is perfect for Aticus to join because he doesn't feel the need for the faction wars anymore. The Shattered Sun broke down the lines of factions between the Aldor and Scryers. So, I really want to be "Aticus Of The Shattered Sun."

Let The Powerleveling Begin!

After BC came out, I leveled Aticus to 70. However, my level 60 Mage was just sitting there at the top of my character list, twiddling his thumbs, and looking from side to side as if he was up to something. I've decided to take him out of retirement. My buddy and I now have a set schedule, day by day, to take turns playing him through Outland. Ideally, I want to make him a great Frost Crit / Shatter build using Mind Mastery and Spell Power talents.

Now, let me try to explain how it works. In layman's terms: Freeze them to the ground and hurt them bad with ice spells. Now, how do I do that? Well, the 40/00/21 helps. Mind Mastery increases spell damage by 25% of your Int. Spell Power increases crit damage by 50%. Now, add that with the frost talent Ice Shards for another +100% crit damage. That's 150%. Wow. With the Shatter talent, the crit chance of spells is increased by 50% against frozen targets. What does Ice Lance do? If it crits, it does 3 time the damage. A good crit with Frostbolt will also give out about 3,500 damage with about 1000 spell damage.

PVP anyone? :-P

We'll see what happens but I'll be playing 6 hours a day while my friend will do another 6. He has full rested so it should be going fast. I'd guess 2 weeks.

An Update on Aticus

Two big news topics: Wrath is in Alpha testing. Rejoice! Secondly, Curt Schilling was on The Instance. I just happened to turn on ustream and I heard his voice and just freaked out! The episode isn't for download yet but once it is up, download it. He's one of the greatest.

Now, Aticus has been very busy over the last week and a half. Things have slowed down (work wise) and I've been able to play in the world of Azeroth for many more hours than I'm used to. I've purchased The Blade Of Wizardry for Aticus because it is a sword made up of pure fire. Was it an upgrade? Not really. My healing went down but my spell damage rose. For solo play, spell damage is a major key to the puzzle. 1200 gold for it on the AH and that did set me back. But, I had the extra cash and I couldn't pass it up. The good news is, after doing dailies for The Shattered Sun, I've gained it all back and more.

I've leveled up my professions up a lot more than they used to. 375 Cooking, 300 Fishing, 290 Skinning, and 246 Mining. I've been talking about doing this for a while and it's a good way to spend my free time after I've done my share of dailies.

Earthen Ring is around 50% done with Phase 3. Pretty sweet. This means, that by the time we hit Phase 4, I will be exalted with The Shattered Sun Offensive! I really want that title "Aticus Of The Shattered Sun" and the tabard. Yeah, I'm a Shattered Sun fanboy. You know, breaking down factions and all that stuff. I'm about 3500-3700 into Revered. Getting about 2500-3000 per day.

By the by, get the food from the vendor there on Quel'Danas. Somewhere around 7500 health and mana in the same food item. Just like the mage's food table but in your backpack. Only 50 silver for 5.

I've also given up on the Naga killing daily on Quel'Danas. The drop rate is too low, the spawn rate is slow, and the siren frostbolting wenches are just annoying. It's not worth my time for just 12 gold.

Oh well. Have a good weekend folks! Be back Monday.

Earthen Ring Wikia

Not sure if there are any other servers on Wikia but I stumbled across an Earthen Ring server wikia. There's a few players on there who are creating pages for their characters and stories. There's also a list of guilds which will help anyone new to the server or switching factions.

You can check out Aticus' page here. Have fun enjoying his character page. [I must say that there is no relation to my own personal personality. It is fully Role Played]. There will be a bigger update Thursday.

PS: I came across a video game reviewer who is just hilarious. You can watch some video reviews here.

Sunwell Phases Server List

I hope everyone is enjoying the new Sunwell content. I should have posted about this before, but it slipped my mind. All servers, of course, are trying to unlock the new phases for the island. There is a website, http://us.gorgonnash.info/, which is taking info from each server and making a list of who completed what and where they're at now. It's a great way to see where your server stands.

As figured, most PVP servers are near the bottom. I could only imagine the carnage which is taking place. My server, Earthen Ring, is currently 20th. That's pretty awesome. Proudmoore and Cenarius are in the top 2 and have already hit phase three! I'm sure that by Saturday, my server will be on its way into phase 3. Still no mailbox :-/...

You can help out Gorgonnash by adding their add-on. This will upload the Sunwell info to their website. If you do not see your server up there, install the add-on! Only servers with people who have the add-on will update onto the website. Happy hunting and for a lot of you, enjoy the end of phase 2!

PS: At least 125 servers now have a portal to Sunwell from Shatt. Now, you do not need to go to the flight master.