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Bornakk defends removing the drakes
As you have probably heard, Blizzard will be removing the Plagued and Black Proto-drake mounts from the game as of 3.1. Currently they're available from the meta-raiding achievements, but since Blizzard wants to keep them rare, they've put a limit on the time you have to finish off those achievements before Ulduar gear and higher levels make them too easy. Lots of players are less than happy about this -- we're not in the right place right now to do these achievements, but we still really want a chance at these drakes. But Bornakk defends the decision over on the forums: he says that they didn't want the achievements to be "watered down as patch after patch goes by."[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
Testing is now over; thanks to Alpha and Vodka for streaming tonight!
Join us on IRC to discuss Iron Council, Ulduar, or anything about WoW. You can also use our new Webchat if you don't want to download an IRC program.
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We're getting tons of reports regarding the Battle.net login server being down yet again tonight, and I can say from personal experience that it absolutely is down. Am I surprised? Not at this point, no. Am I disappointed? Absolutely. This is not a one-time problem, it's occurring with ridiculous regularity, and I really hope it gets fixed soon.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.Probably one of the top requests WoW Rookie gets from new players is a plea for an explanation of WoW and gaming terminology. Even a casual skim of WoW Insider's front page can prove challenging to new gamers. Example: what to experienced players is a routine update on new PTR schedules can be an exercise in frustration for readers who are still sorting out WTT from WTF. ("PTR? WTF?!?")
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The intertubes are abuzz with the new UI policy enacted by Blizzard a couple weeks ago. Not being able to charge for add-ons or solicit donations has caused quite a stir amongst some folks. Certain add-on authors are even going as far as to boycott their projects until Blizzard changes their policy.ZAM networks, who runs the WoW information site Allakhazam, got a chance to sit down and talk with Connie Mableson, a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property Law and Computer and Internet Law. You can read the full interview over at their site.
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On this day of fools and foolishness we’ve seen some very funny stuff come out of the community at-large.
-From Blizzard we have some truly impressive hilarity in the form of a new PVP dance battle system, the P1mp my mount feature on the European side of the pond and (our personal favorite) the roleplay-ization of the official forums.
-From Markco we found new ways to win our AH bids (good one there buddy, you had us for a minute!)
-WoW Insider gave us a view into Blizzard’s further partnership efforts (hey, it’s better than the World of Hello Kitty joke from last year anyway).
-The Guardian, a UK newspaper, announced their intent to go Twitter only.
-Tobold joins the fun with his own announcements of massive development changes to some of our favorite MMOs.
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We're going to cover all the April Fools jokes from around the WoW community tomorrow (after they're over so we're sure we don't miss too many), but I wanted to take a moment to give a PSA about the WoW Instant Messenger add-on.[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
It's a tough economy out there, and everyone's looking for a stable job that won't drive them nuts. Enter this kind fellow from Santa Barbara, California -- he's offering "fulltime" pay to someone willing to become a PvP guild director. Duties include picking up skilled new recruits, delivering summaries of what's been going on in the guild, and keeping tabs on raid stats, guild banking, auctions, and so on. He's got a three-box setup you can use when he's not on it (hence, the money to burn), and while pay isn't much at first, he does have plans in mind for a bonus schedule (if the guild gets three people in the top Arena rankings, you get a frozen turkey?).[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
We have come to love vellums and the profit they generate. Only a few of the people behind the WoWenomics project are actually enchanters themselves but now, with the introduction of weapon and armor vellums into the game, there is finally a way for the rest of us to make some gold off of the enchanting profession.
Vellums Explained-
A vellum is a type of scroll created by scribes that can be used by enchanters to make their various enchantments portable. Prior to the introduction of vellums to the game, enchanters had to sell their wares directly to potential customers who would first trade the enchantment materials to the enchanter, then place their target item in the ‘Will not be traded’ box of the trade screen where the enchanter would (hopefully) enchant the target item with the desired effect. The system worked but was flawed in several senses. First, it meant that, unlike other professions, Enchanters had to be logged in and present to sell their wares. Further, due to the nature of the transaction, it often meant that enchanters worked for tips. And, as anyone who has ever spent even a few days waiting tables in a restaurant will tell you, not all tips are created equal. What the vellum allows the WoW enchanter to do, in essence, is transfer one of their item enchantments to a BoE scroll (importantly, using their own materials) that can then be traded to another player. This is an important mechanic that completely transforms the enchanting profession and allows enchanters (and others) many profitable new ways to use their trade.
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More updates and changes here at WoWenomics. All of these changes come as the result of reader requests and feedback. We love hearing from you and appreciate you sharing your ideas. Keep ‘em coming!
Archive page launched-
First, we added a new Archive page. You can finally browse and view your favorite WoWenomic posts either chronologically or by topic. Be sure to give it a look and see what you might have missed if you’re just tuning in.
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Where is your toon parked? Dalaran? Another capital city? An inn somewhere? If you are max-level you can use where you park for the night to your strategic and profitable advantage. Parking for Profit is a column highlighting strategic places to leave your toon when you log off for the night that will allow you to potentially benefit from your location when you log back in. As there is no single best place to park, we’ll feature a new location with profit potential and explain why in each column.
Parking spot coordinates: Approximately 31, 58 in Nagrand.
Target item: Gems, amount gained based on reputation with faction.
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My First Gold is a new regular column dedicated to helping players level 20 and lower to start building their WoWenomic empire. Following these tips should help new players (and alts) expand their WoW wallets to afford training, trade skills and have a few gold left in their pockets. Higher-level players may find benefit in these tips as well, but every tip herein is intended to be within the capabilities of a player below the 21st level.
If you can make it to Stormwind, and if you can kill a couple of unremarkable level 9 mobs, you already have the means to make a couple of extra gold a day. In Elwynn Forest, just outside of the front gates of the human capitol city, lies a largely undiscovered Defias camp called Thunder Falls. This small patch of land, just above Mirror Lake, has a few roaming mobs and, more importantly, a lootable treasure chest spawn point that is almost always available due to the fact that so few players have ever visited the location. An informal poll amongst friends and guildmates exposed not a single other player that has ever heard of, much less visited, Thunder Falls. We have found the area to be extremely beneficial to our newer Alliance characters as, due to both the close proximity to Stormwind and the camp’s vast unpopularity, we can loot the chest spawn point and get back to the city in under 10 minutes.
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That's right! Patch 3.2's secret raid instance is another for Caverns of Time, called "The Damaged Portal"! In this new Onyxia-style, single-encounter instance, you'll be able to challenge foes of yore -- now increased in power to level 80, thanks to the toiling of the Infinite Dragonflight -- and receive all-new epic rewards! If you enjoyed experiencing old content anew with Naxxramas, you'll be sure to love this instance.
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Thanks to the astute eyes of reader Jadissa, we can report that Noblegarden is no longer present on the in-game calendar. This is likely a clear indicator that the in-game world event is getting pushed back. Based on what we know already (that it will be part of other achievements), it should not be assumed that the event was removed.[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
A University of California Irvine anthropologist named Bonnie Nardi has been studying one of the strangest cultures known to man lately, and she's going to be presenting her findings in a book called "My life as a Night Elf Priest" -- that's right, she's been taking notes on the weird sociological experiment known as Azeroth. It sounds pretty interesting -- she's been examining the way Chinese and American players play the game (and of course the differences between them), and she's also looking into how games like WoW can bring us closer together rather than isolating us socially. [View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]
Blizzard has made a nice cinematic tweak to the forums today -- as you can see in this impassioned Engineering QQ thread, they've added a little bit of font flavor and some roleplaying text to everyone's posts. Instead of just whining about Engineers, "Aurainsoph's brow furrowed in concentration" before speaking, and after every paragraph, we get a much clearer picture of what our characters are doing, whether that be "putting on her robe and wizard's hat" (yuk yuk yuk) or "liberally applied his custom fragrance, which was made with bits of real nightsaber." Wait -- eww.
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General Vezax Hard Mode will be available for testing on European PTRs, starting at 19:00 CEST.
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Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss the new gear coming for Rogues in the upcoming patch.With patch 3.1's steam winding down, I predict its release in the next three weeks. Our most recent change was a simple increase to Deadly Throw's velocity: hardly groundbreaking. We should begin finalizing new builds, and planning our gear upgrade paths.
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Blizzard never fails to exceed expectations on April Fool's Day -- in the EU, they reported on a brand new Pimp My Mount option (featuring tiger-mounted gatling guns), over on the forums, they RP'd the place up a bit, and now on the North American page, they've announced the game's newest feature: a Dance Battle system. They say that sometime soon in the game (that is, if this wasn't April 1st), players will be able to have dance-offs around the world, culminating in a huge dance tournament to take place in Kael'thas quarters in Tempest Keep. Wait, isn't that guy dead? Players will be able to form crews, which can then battle each other using player controlled dance moves and a vehicle-like interface.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
General Vezax Testing
Today's testing starts with the EU testing of General Vezax; US players will be able to test Iron Council later today.
Join us on IRC to discuss General Vezax, Ulduar, or anything about WoW. You can also use our new Webchat if you don't want to download an IRC program.
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Blizzard's merchandising hasn't stopped with Mountain Dew, no sir. This past week the WoW Insider staff received a lovely surprise in the form of a package from Swanson. Many of the producers of Blizzard-licensed products (such as UpperDeck) tend to send us advance, review copies of new products. Swanson followed suit and has sent us a variety of the new Hungry Man dinners that will be hitting stores this summer.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
If you've been following the emergence of the "Belf Rap" genre, then you're already somewhat familiar with Abandonation. He's done collaborations already with Nyhm, Gigi, and other similarly-inclined artists. While working on other upcoming projects, Abandonation hooked up with a new machinimist who goes by Red Eye Lobine. Red Eye, of course, is the chap who put out the awesome preview for his own work, Frontline. (That song is actually performed by the rock band Pillar, but the gorgeous animation is all done by Red Eye.)
This is another preview video, so be warned that it cuts off a little abruptly. That being said, I think the preview provides a very strong feel for what the final video will be like. Abandonation is responsible for the music, and Red Eye for the video itself.
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Blizzard Europe today announced on their website a new feature called "Pimp My Mount"! According to the page, you'll be able to spend around 30,000g and equip your ride with the latest mount pimpage and pwn the face off of everyone that sees you.There are many options available for a pimped out ride. You can choose how much turbo boost you have, how many ejection seats, different kinds of lights, trims, sound systems, drink dispensers, and windows.
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"Have you checked the Dalaran fountain lately?" said the blood elf death knight. "There's actually a hole in the bottom of the pool now. You can't see it, but if you keep swimming downward you'll stumble upon it. And if you go all the way to the bottom of the hole and fight a shark, you'll get an achievement and a rideable murloc mount!" Sadly, the realization that it was April Fool's Day came far too late for Endario and the valiant level 1 gnome (and one dwarf) alts of <La Familia de Stonewall> on Proudmoore. The blood elf simply looked on and laughed, before resuming his 18-hour search for a VoA group that wasn't full on death knights.
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Here's a few bits of WoW book news from our friend Medievaldragon over at Blizzplanet. First up, the good news: Aaron Rosenberg and Christie Golden have been nominated for a "Best Adapted" award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers (just proving that for everything in the world, there's an association for it) for the World of Warcraft: Beyond the Dark Portal book that they wrote together. Pretty groovy, and supposedly well-deserved -- if you ever sit down to read any of the Warcraft literature, we've heard that's a great place to start. Winners of the prizes will be announced at GenCon this year, so good luck to the writers there.[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]
On this fantastic day of April 1st, Blizzard unveiled the latest addition to World of Warcraft: Pimp My Mount!!
Quote from: (Source)Tired of your mount looking like every other raptor, wolf, horse, kodo, or nightsaber out there? Want to spice it up with some armor plating, a few spikes or chains, or maybe even some flaming decals? Then Z to the A to the zzber (whew, that's a mouthful!) will be glad to welcome you to his shop where you can epic-ize your mount with some phat total pimpage!
Coming in a future content patch, we plan to bring you a new feature that will allow you to alter the color, the armor, or add decorations to your in-game mounts. Simply drop in to Zazzber's Local Fix-'Er-Up, pay a small fee, and leave your mount there overnight. The next morning, you'll pick up a mount that is uniquely yours!
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While I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, there are times when it feels like too much work and I need to take some sort of forced vacation. I got that last week when I needed to take my wife to the hospital and we were both properly pried away from the game. We were unable to play for a few days, she bedridden and I keeping watch in a sad, Internet-less room. It was actually refreshing. I watched some TV and my wife finally started on Brisngr.
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I wouldn't jump to conclusions, but we can assume that April 14 or April 21 are the potential release dates for Patch 3.1.
Quote from: Bornakk (Source) We are currently planning to end Arena Season 5 as early as April 14, or possibly a week after this date. At that point we will go through our normal process to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards. This process should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for the arena-specific titles and/or Deadly Gladiator?s Frostwyrm to refrain from transferring their character to another realm until after Arena Season 5 ends.
The following Arena Season will not begin for at least one week after the current season ends. During this time between seasons, all rated matches will be turned off and only skirmishes will be available. When Arena Season 6 begins, all teams, personal rating, and arena points will be wiped, but matchmaking rating and honor points will remain.
Arena Tournament Current Standings 3/31/09
Quote from: Bornakk (Source) The top 10 teams of the 2009 Arena Tournament?s online qualifier as of March 31, 2009 are listed below:
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Something really amazing happened the other day -- Jalabharxo, as you can see in the chat above, asked for some help in the Trade chat. But unlike what usually happens (someone insults his mother or people make fun of his lack of knowledge by calling him a noob), the unthinkable took place: someone respectfully answered his question. He couldn't believe it, and even though he sent us the screenshot, neither could we.
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Bornakk posted a tentative date for the announced end of Arena Season 5, indicating that the season can end "as early as April 14" or a week after. It should be noted that the first four Arena seasons had no breaks in between, with one season beginning immediately after the last ended. Arena seasons were only suspended upon the release of Patch 3.0 leading up to Wrath of the Lich King, with the first season of Level 80 Arena play beginning on December 16. This time around, however, Bornakk makes it clear that the next Arena season will not begin immediately but have at least a one week break before Season 6 begins.
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