The Loot Council is regular column highlighting interesting and informative posts from around the WoW finance blogosphere.

We’re big fans of statistics here at WoWenomics. As we’ve said many times, information is what drives smart investing. The best advisors are not the loudest ones but rather the best informed. Statistics are the most important part of this information exchange in that they allow us to look at data in a comparative format and, hopefully, identify trends. Of course, everyone interprets data differently and that’s where things start to get confusing.

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Tickets are only going on sale today, but already people are planning the most important part of BlizzCon: the parties. There's a whole crew of people planning to meet up at the Hilton, and if the past few years are any indication, all of the restaurants and bars around the area will be hosting roaming groups of World of Warcraft and Blizzard fans after the show every night. Whether you're meeting up with your guildies or just sitting down with random strangers to talk about whatever Blizzard announced previously in the day, partying at Blizzard's big event is always a good time.

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Each week Arcane Brilliance gets Blizzcon tickets. Yes, Arcane Brilliance always gets 1st place in the queue, and then buys as many tickets as it wants. Arcane Brilliance is just that cool. Also, Arcane Brilliance refuses to give me any. Stupid Arcane Brilliance. Stupid Blizzcon. Stupid Warlocks. Wait...what? Just go with it.

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We can expect the realm to feature premades and gear and enchant vendors, like previous tournament realms. They also mention "live showing of raids;" I'm not sure we've seen realms with premade PvE play before, so that should be interesting. More information on registration is going to be released "within the next few days;" we'll keep you posted. Is anyone thinking of competing at DreamHack? Has anyone gone before?

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Snaboo of Greymane shouted out to the Blizzard posters on the forums. He appreciates that they are being customer focused and social. This elicited positive responses from a handful of blue posters, except Bornakk, who's still grumpy.

Some posters disagreed about the attention the blues pay to the community. That they are slow to respond to "serious" questions or that they seem disrespectful of players. Crygil pointed out that in many cases there are several threads on a particular subject. The blues try to address at least one of them, but aren't able to respond in all of the threads on a single topic.

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Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Archavon or Algalon, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, I attempt to find common ground with a casual player who's never raided and doesn't want to.

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I've been reading the comments from some of our recent posts and realized that there is quite a bit of mismatch between players and guilds. There are casual players in hardcore guilds that find themselves being passed over in content. There are hardcore players in casual guilds that don't get to move on to things they want. Some players need a higher level of maturity.

There are usually a handful of guilds recruiting in the Guildwatch column, but I think, for today, we can do better. If your guild looking for more take a moment to comment with the nitty gritty. If you're interested in putting up a little advertisement take a moment to copy/paste and complete the following form:

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This post will be updated throughout the day today as tickets to BlizzCon 2009 are being sold. Ticket sales are expected to begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT / 12:00 p.m. CDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT. Please feel free to leave a comment with your latest BlizzCon ticket experiences, and let us know if you run into any difficulties. If you have questions or want to be alerted to updates in a different way, check us out on Twitter today.

1:28 p.m. EDT: Sold out until May 30th. I'd really love to know how many tickets they released. We had people on staff in position 5000 in the queue not get a ticket.

Older updates after the break.

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BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
1:18 p.m. EDT: Queue is now over 21,000. 43% of the tickets are left for today.

1:12 p.m. EDT: Half the tickets are gone for today. Good luck to the ~20,000 of you in the queue!

1:10 p.m. EDT: Queue is now over 17,000. People are getting tickets, however.

1:09 p.m. EDT: It appears that the ticket queue is based on cookies, so if you leave it and rejoin you'll end up back in your original position. Do not try this though unless you're insane.

1:02 p.m. EDT: Queue is now over 12,000.

1:00 p.m. EDT: Tickets are on sale. Matticus is in position 840 after placing an order seconds after the order site allowed him to.

12:47 p.m. EDT: DirecTV and Web Streaming are not purchasable at this time. Nethaera posted as much in the forums a bit ago.

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Update 10:30AM PDT - It's been 30 minutes and tickets are now out of stock. See you on May 30 for the 2nd batch if you couldn't get one today!
Quote from: Nethaera (Source)The initial allotment of tickets for BlizzCon 2009 has now been sold out. If you weren’t able to get tickets this time, you’ll have a second chance on Saturday, May 30, as another batch will go on sale then. Coverage of the gaming festival will also be offered by DIRECTV as a Pay Per View event, available both via satellite and Internet stream.
Blizzcon 2009 Tickets Now On Sale
You can now buy your Blizzcon 2009 Tickets from the official site!

• Ticket Sales Page
• Ticket Queue System FAQ
• Debit and Credit Card Purchases - Information
• Official Blizzcon Site


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Tickets are sold out for the day, and most of us are probably a little angry, but don't forget! There's another day of ticket sales on the 30th! If you haven't made your decision on whether you want to go or not yet, you're running out of time and it's probably a good time to look back on the BlizzCon that was. BlizzCon 2008 lacked any major World of Warcraft announcements, Blizzard's other franchises stole the spotlight last year, but that doesn't mean WoW wasn't there in spades. Let's take a moment to look back on that, shall we?

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The Opening Ceremonies BlizzCon 2008 kicked off with the opening ceremonies, hosted by Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Morhaime delivered many facts and figures about the World of Warcraft at the time (if WoW were a country, it would be the 75th largest in the world), and announced a new class for Diablo III: The Wizard.

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The PvP Panel Liveblog BlizzCon 2008's PvP Panel was the first time many World of Warcraft players saw what Wrath of the Lich King was bringing to the table for PvPers. It contained detailed discussion on Strand of the Ancients, Wintergrasp, and the Dalaran and Orgrimmar arenas. Will BlizzCon 2009 have as much to talk about on that end? We can hope!

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The Sound and Music Panel Many players take the sounds of Blizzard's games for granted and play with the whole thing muted, but composers Russell Brower, Glenn Stafford, and Derek Duke gave attendees insight into their process and the importance of music in games. There's a special treat in this one: Recordings of the live performances given during this panel. Lament of the Highborne, anyone?

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The UI Panel Liveblog UI developers Tom Thompson and Derek Sakamato took the reins of the UI panel which gave many players the first look at Wrath of the Lich King's achievement pane, and supplied an in-depth look at the development of the Death Knight's rune and runic power UI.

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The Q&A Panel Liveblog Chris Metzen, Chris Robinson, Cory Stockton, J Allen Brack, and Jeff Kaplan were put under the spotlight to answer a plethora of questions from the crowd, covering a wide array of World of Warcraft related topics. Pandaren hopefuls, this panel has something you may be interested in!

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BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.

Did you manage to get your tickets? I'm sure there will be plenty of folks who are returning to BlizzCon. I wasn't able to go but I followed WoW Insider's coverage of the event from the opening ceremonies to the final concert. It was an awesome time for fans to get insight on some of the behind the scenes aspects of WoW, including an art gallery, a sound panel, and an introduction to Ghostcrawler.

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The first batch of tickets to this year's BlizzCon in Anaheim sold out less than thirty minutes after they became available on Blizzard's Battle.Net store. While some buyers included sincere conference attendees such as our own Matt Low, the latest crop of goods over at eBay might provide another insight as to why the tickets fizzled so fast. A quick scan of BlizzCon items already include the goody bags from the August event, highlighted by Grunty, the Murloc Marine. Some are also selling tickets outright, with some auctions already going over $800.

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As a consequence of the non-linear nature of ArP, getting very high amounts of it can lead to insanely boosted damage - as an unattainable example, I'm told that 300% ArP would mean thousands of times more damage. To keep ArP from getting out of control, then, Ghostcrawler has announced that they plan on capping ArP at 100%, meaning armor could no longer go negative (which it can now).

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This morning, while the US slept, I sat trying to figure out something fun I could write to help keep the site going during the inevitable BlizzCon ticket chaos. Browsing for ideas, I stumbled across Blizzard's unofficial mascot, the harbringer of chaos and mrgl-misery: the Failoc.

An ugly, unwanted child spawned from last year's nightmare, the Failoc has quietly assumed his place as the herald of doom. From the first time he appeared on the official website during the great ticket sale crash of 2008, he was become as much a part of WoW lore as anything in-game. Wearing his BlizzCon 2007 suit and waving a banner reading 'oops!', whichever bright spark at Blizzard came up with his creation must be regretting it.
Murlocs themselves have always been Blizzard's unofficial mascot. Loved and reviled in equal measure by players and devs, they have been a staple (in one form or another) non-combat pet given away to BlizzCon attendees and have inspired plushies and music videos. However anyone who wandered around Elwynn Forest only to hear that terrible noise too late, only to be swarmed and slaughtered by hundreds of the little buggers will understand the feeling of dread associated with these creatures. Indeed, so insidious is this feeling of revulsion that by the time you hit level 70 it has become almost a phobia. Then Blizzard asks you to save Greengill murlocs, well it's just wrong!

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Machinima's a pretty big topic. Depending on who you talk to, "machinima" could include story-based movies, PvP footage, boss kills, music videos, and even videography of altered in-game landscapes. There are uncounted thousands of videos about World of Warcraft roaming the internet, so it can be very difficult to know where to start.

In honor of the ticket queue for BlizzCon 2009, Moviewatch presents seven machinima movies and machinimators you should know. Certainly, these aren't the only 7 movies or authors you should know, but they do include some of the most popular staples of the art. If you find yourself chatting it up with a machinima enthusiast around the BlizzCon water cooler, you can probably be certain they've seen these shows.

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Why on earth would you design a prison with skylights? No one but the Kirin Tor know the answer. At least Ripps of Khaz Modan was thankful for the light inside the Violet Hold. He'd been feeling a bit peaky, what with all the hours spent in dungeons and icy fields, nowhere conducive to putting down roots, and his leaves were beginning to wilt. A blast of concentrated sunlight would feel better than a million elixirs. Now if only the rest of the raid would stop dying long enough for him to make his way into the sunbeam ...

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This is going to be inconvenient for those of you attempting to form PuGs, especially PuG raids. Hopefully BlizzCon tickets will sell out relatively quickly, and this madness will be over, and our beloved gear-checking, snobbery-enabling service returned to us. How will you be vetting players in the mean time?

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WoW has been in a state of flux in China lately, with the9 failing to gain approval from the government to publish Wrath of the Lich King, which in turn may or may not have lead to Blizzard licensing the operation of WoW in China to Netease instead.

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Reader Kongzai sent us a tip this morning that the recently revealed loot cards for the next TCG expansion Fields of Honor are available for testing on the PTR. He hotfotted it down to Booty Bay and reports that it is indeed possible to sample the latest loot using the same codes as in previous PTR tests. All you need to do is enter the following when prompted by Landro:

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Well, it's that time of year again -- that special time of year when a young man's thoughts of buying BlizzCon tickets turn to a creeping psychosis. When dark whispers echo from the cavernous depths of the serpentine tunnels beneath the earth's crust, their walls emblazoned with pulsing eldritch symbols unknown to any living civilization. When dreamers with minds unguarded bear witness to the psychic rumblings of beings lost to time. If you listen closely you can hear it, sussurating even now...

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As always happened eventually, Blizzard has spotted the bug, and they're going to be hotfixing it soon. The glyph will still keep its intended effect; PvP DKs will not see a change, most likely. But now I'm curious: what was the glyph doing for tanks? Was it adding 10% onto IBF at all times, or something?

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In just a few short hours from now, we'll have our first chance to get our hands on BlizzCon tickets. Many of you (and most of us, too) are probably already parked in front of your computers, hoping and praying that Blizzard's new queue system works as intended and the whole thing goes smoothly. What I'm curious to find out is exactly how many of you are actually doing that.

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Here's a heads up to all our readers in the general area of Loveland, Colorado. Christie Golden will appear at 2 PM Today at your local Barnes and Noble to sign copies of her New York Times best selling book, Arthas. If you're in the area and don't need to be glued to your computer waiting for BlizzCon tickets -- or are lucky enough to get one of the first tickets -- this is a pretty decent use of a Saturday afternoon, I'd say.

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Tickets are scheduled to go on sale specifically at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, Saturday, May 16.

BlizzCon 2009 - Tickets on Sale Today
Quote from: Nethaera (Source)Just in case Saturday, May 16 isn’t circled on your calendar, here’s a quick reminder that BlizzCon tickets will be going on sale tomorrow. After our gnomish engineers here in Southern California get to work and finish making the final preparations late Saturday morning, they’ll activate the ticket-purchase process at 10 a.m. Pacific time and BlizzCon tickets will officially go on sale. If you are unable to purchase tickets tomorrow, a second batch of tickets will go on sale May 30. And for those unable to attend the show, in-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be offered by DIRECTV as a Pay Per View event, available both via satellite and Internet stream.

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Stars (Taiwan) beats Mimiron in Hard Mode
The World 2nd Kill of Mimiron in hard mode didn't come from Europe or United States but from ... Taiwan! Stars (TW - Crystalspine Stinger) was the 2nd guild after Ensidia to get the Heroic: Firefighter achievement, according to reports they spent the last weeks spending most of their time working on this encounter and this is definitely a well deserved kill. Congratulations to them.


Battle-Bot is an US-Only Pet?
Earlier this month I posted the models of new Battle-Bots introduced with Patch 3.1.2.

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....the night before BlizzCon ticket sales.

Yes folks. You should be completely confident in Blizzard. I mean, the night before how many tens of thousands of people from around the world try to order tickets, the authentication servers, account management, and by all reports most of Battle.net go down. Many users are experiencing it, however a few are not.

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