Continue reading »]]> I feel like a terrible Beta tester, here I am with “exclusive” access to the new Mists of Pandaria Beta, and I have no urge to do any real testing. This past week I finally got around to tinkering a bit with the Beta, mostly just played a Pandaran until we got to Stormwind. I’ll hopefully get around to playing with the higher end content eventually but I figured I’d just get down what I thought of the Beta so far.

My first impression of Pandaran wasn’t stellar, in fact I didn’t like them the first time I played. They grew on me however and now I think they are pretty cool, still not as cool as Worgen though. I chose to play as a monk and although it bears striking resemblance to a rogue what with the energy and combo points basically, it felt different enough that it shouldn’t really matter, and the monk on the whole felt fun to play, nice and fast paced for the most part. If I was a hunter I’d probably snatch one of the Corsac Fox roaming around the starting area, they look pretty cool.

The AoE looting feature is a nice quality of life addition, but it isn’t really ground breaking or game changing, just a nice touch that’ll save a few seconds here and there. The Auction House interface has improved a little bit but not by enough to render any of your gold related add-ons obsolete, so we’ll still be add-on heavy going into Mists of Pandaria.

I was disappointed that despite all the new ores and herbs being in the files already they appear not to be available in the beta as of yet which is unfortunate since I was looking forward to doing some mass prospecting and number crunching. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if we’ll get access to the ore and herbs before live, I wasn’t in the Cataclysm beta so I have no idea if we had access to ore in the beta then. But, if we do get access to the ore and herbs in the beta, you can be sure I’m going to be prospecting the hell out of it.

Continue reading »]]> I assume by now everyone and their donkey has heard already, but MMO-Champion has revealed information on a new Black Market Auction House. Go ahead and check it out if you haven’t already, I’ll wait here. Read it through? Good. Pretty wicked eh? Some important details about the new Black Market Auction House:

• Auctions are “run” by NPCs
• Auctions include a variety of rare big ticket items such as mounts, pets, plans, transmog armour etc.
• The gold used to purchase the items disappears much as it would if you bought from a regular vendor, i.e. it doesn’t go into another player’s pocket
• There is no buyout

What all this means is that we’re going to have a daily draining of gold from the servers. Many of the items on here are of sufficient value and rarity that many big spenders will be emptying their wallets to buy them, and the first time (at least) really big items like Invincible’s Reins (assuming they will be available) come up you can be sure there will be million gold bids within minutes. The killer prices won’t be able to last forever though, even us goblins have our limits, and we’ll soon see the prices for many of these items coming down in the months following the release of the expansion.

Effects on the Economy

This is going to have a huge, and scaling, effect on server economies. What you have here is repeatable gold dumps that scale to a server’s economy, keeping inflation in check like we’ve never seen before. On the regular auctions house all the gold from big ticket items go to another player, the gold is basically being recycled minus the 5% AH cut. With the BMAH 100% of the gold spent on the purchase is being removed from the economy, potentially removing millions of gold every day in large chunks from the Daddy Big Bucks of the server, and not just nickle and diming every player like most of the other sinks like repairs and AH cuts. It’s going to be very interesting to see what how the economy reacts to this.

Effects on Gold Sellers

Gold Sellers aren’t magicians, they can’t just magic gold into the game so the gold they sell has to come from somewhere, be it hack, farmers, sales of dupes etc. all the gold they sell has to be in the economy already. I admit I don’t really know too much about the gold selling process, but one can only assume that they have a finite supply of gold on hand at any one time, and I’m seriously pondering exactly how big these reserves are. Are they big enough to supply a server when the first big ticket item like Invincible goes up? Or will the gold sellers run out of gold?

Either way the BMAH will send gold sellers through some serious twists and turns, because while multiple people might buy gold to buy a certain item off the BMAH, only one can win it so the rest are left with large sums of gold sitting about. This means gold sellers will experience astronomical spikes in demand probably followed by a relative dry spell. If I were a gold seller I’d seriously consider stepping up production right about now.

Conclusions

Unfortunately this hasn’t actually been activated on the Beta servers as of this writing but as soon as it goes on the server you can be assured it will be the first thing I check out (I’m still exploring the beta, expect a post about my initial thoughts soon). I must say this has probably been one of the smartest things Blizzard has done to combat inflation, and yet I don’t think that was their intention at all. Funny how these things work.

Continue reading »]]> Yes, yes I know I haven’t written anything gold related, or WoW related for that matter, in way too long. To be honest I’ve still been a bit apathetic towards the game, honestly if it wasn’t for the fact I succumbed to the annual pass, I would have probably dropped WoW by now. But I did agree to the annual pass, as so I couldn’t drop it, and so here I am!

Why I Haven’t Been Blogging

Honestly, I still do like blogging, it’s just been hard coming up with topics lately, there hasn’t exactly been any news gold related since the last patch dropped, so I’ve been sitting here sort of fiddling my thumbs. I should break out my writing ideas notebook and see what I have scribbled in it, but I foresee either all the topics being out of date, used, or some random sentence, quote, or song that I no longer know what I was going to write about. When you’re not playing the game you blog about, it becomes really hard to write about, and my thoughts about expanding the scope of this blog hasn’t been really turning out, because I’m honestly not confident in myself to write about anything “off topic” that people would find interesting.

But I Intend To Fix That!

I made use of the new Scroll of Resurrection offer by Blizzard to create myself a brand spanking new level 80 Priest, and I’m hoping this enough to get me back into the game, shiny new toy and all. So far it’s been working, it’s already at level 83, and once I got over the initial apprehension of learning a new class, I’ve been playing it fairly steadily.

As a side note: I see why Blizzard has never given levelled character’s this high before, this is seriously overwhelming basically being thrown head first into a new class. That levelling I did as a priest up to about level 40? Completely out the window, this should certainly be an interesting experience.

Barrier to (Re)Entry

I didn’t take an official hiatus this time, I just sort of drifted away from the game, so while I didn’t shut anything down, I lost touch of the markets and fell out of routine (not to mention I’m pretty sure I lost a lot of inventory in the mailbox). One of the biggest issue I have right now getting back into gold making is reworking my buying prices, posting prices etc., and once I do that I should be golden.

Mists of Pandaria NDA Being Lifted

A lot of bloggers were excited to hear what was being released in the press…event? I think that’s what it was, an event. Any who, I really wasn’t too excited about it, and too be honest I’m still not to concerned. Once I get my Beta invite however (I signed up for the Annual Pass fairly soon after it’s release) I plan on poking around and seeing what changes Mists of Pandaria will bring for the gold making community. Oh, and Pandas, definitely going to spend a lot of time rolling around as a Panda.

Continue reading »]]> The introduction of the new Scroll of Resurrection program has presented me, and many other players, a unique opportunity to get a “free” level 80 character. Yes that’s right, no levelling needed, just boom, level 80 character. What’s the catch? You have to bring an old account back, and that account gets the free character (along with free copy of Cataclysm). Fortunately, I have a second account sitting idle which should be eligible so I fire it up again using this new program, claim my free character, and move it over to my main account for a small fee. Luckily the scroll gives 7 free days to the other account, so I don’t even need to cough up a months subscription, just the transfer fee.

As I write this however I have been informed on the Consortium IRC that there is apparently some sort of cut off. Now my second account has been dormant for a while now, so I think I’ll make it, however that’d be just my luck to not be eligible for this fantastic promotion.

Why I Need a Free Level 80

I hate levelling in the old areas, with a passion. I’d rather do classwork than level characters. While others enjoy the levelling process, I get no real joy out of it besides the shiny new toy factor. The result? I only have two 85’s, and two 75s (both of the later being DKs) which means I have 8 profession slots to use, of which only one isn’t fully used (it’s got like 200 tailoring on it). Not that I’m missing any professions really, I’ve got all the professions available to me that I feel I need to conquer the economy, the only professions I’m missing now are Leatherworking, Skinning, and Herbalism.

No what really appeals to me for this free character is what appeals to the non gold makers, a free character that starts right at the fun part (level 80). I’d love to have another character to experience end game with, even if I don’t raid I’d like to have it available to me.

What I’m Going To Pick

I haven’t decided yet. I already have a Paladin, Druid, and 2x DK so those are off the table. I don’t like playing rogues or warriors, so those are gone too, as well as mages since I really don’t think I’d like them either. I’ve never played a shaman past 20, and I’ve never really fancied playing one. So that leaves me with Priest, Warlock, or Hunter. I’m leaning towards the priest right now, because on my two mains, my paladin and my druid, I both heal, and priests are sort of the jack of all trades healing class, so I’d probably enjoy them, plus I’ve played several priest alts nearly up to level 60 and have enjoyed them quite a bit. Hunter’s have always seemed cool as well with their pets, and the dark wizard style of warlocks have always been intriguing as well. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to pick, hopefully I’ll have decided by Sunday so I can spend the day working with it.

As for professions? I think I’m going to pick up leatherworking and a second alchemy, that way I can complete my crafting collection, and have two alchemy specs at my disposal.

Continue reading »]]> As some of you who follow my twitter might have already heard, last week over my reading week my keyboard broke. And when I say it broke, I meant I fried it…by cleaning it. The keyboard was a Zboard with a removable keyset that can be washed fairly easily. Last Monday (I think it was Monday) I was cleaning my room up a bit, and decided to clean my peripherals (I’m a bit of a clean freak, messy, but clean). However when I put the keyset back in after washing them I apparently didn’t dry them well enough so some water go into the keyboard base, the part with actual electronics, and I suddenly found at least half a dozen of my main keys not working. Oops. So after some deliberating (and thanks to those that offered up suggestions) I ordered myself a Vengeance K90, I’m apparently a sucker for flashing lights. This was also my first foray into mechanical keyboards so I was a bit apprehensive about it as I had never used one before, but since I couldn’t find a single negative about the mechanical keyboards besides the noise, I took the plunge and ordered it that Wednesday.

Unfortunately it did not come until the following Tuesday (the highlight in a really shitty day), so I went most of my reading week using a grungy old Dell stock keyboard I had laying at the back of my closet that was covered in stains of undeterminable sources. Yuck. This was especially unfortunate as I ended up staying home all reading week due a series of unfortunate events cancelling all my plans for that week, and I was sick (one of the unfortunate events). I intended to break in the new keyboard by writing a blog post, and starting work on a Geography essay due Thursday. Those plans got halted when, at 20:30, I realized that I had a presentation due the next day that I had not started. So my keyboard’s maiden voyage was a presentation on the water quality of Lake of the Woods and the Rainy River Basin. Fun stuff (though on the plus side, considering it was three hours of work, I thought the presentation went alright, though like usual I suck at presenting…I really need to stop doing these by myself ha-ha).

I Hate Essay Writing

As much as I’ve come to like blogging, or writing as I call it to those I don’t want to know I have a blog (i.e. everyone I know in real life), I absolutely loathe essay writing. Luckily for me in my program I don’t have to do a whole lot of essay writing (or writing in general), instead it’s just a lot of reports mixed in with a few presentations. That being said, this was a particularly bad essay, throughout the whole thing I had no idea what I was talking about, though apparently every one of my classmates had the exact same problem, at least I met the minimum word count. What did I have to write about? Well, this was my “task” for the essay:

By using the landscape and setting from your favorite movie, discuss how the landscape adds or detracts to the plot of the movie, or influences the story.

Now that might not seem terrible, but think about this: Not only did we have to do 1500-2000 words on this, I still can’t figure out why we actually had this as a topic. I mean it’s an Urban and Rural Geography course…in a Civil Engineering Technology program, I really can’t draw the connection. I don’t see how we can take a film such as Patriot Games (the film I chose) and apply it to the topics we had been discussing in that class such as urbanization, gentrification, industrialization, and de-colonization. Like I said I did end up hitting the minimum word count which was more than many of my classmates could claim, though the result was this piece of crap filled with bloat, bullshit, and rambling. Oh well at least it’s done and over with.

The Change to a Mechanical Keyboard

I must say that this new keyboard is absolutely spectacular. Not only does it have the appropriate cool factor, but typing on it so far has been a dream. Having never used a mechanical keyboard I wasn’t sure what to expect, but now that I’ve made the move I don’t regret it one bit. The only problem I’ve had, though it’s already nearly disappeared, is when I started using it I kept placing my fingers in the wrong spots, I’d be hitting all the keys shifted one or two to the left. Besides that however the typing has been practically orgasmic, though I’m not realizing the full potential of this keyboard yet as I’m still fully pressing each key while it only take a mere 2mm to activate it, but again I’m already noticing the difference and am slowly getting better at it.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to try any serious games with it yet (Snake on Facebook doesn’t count) though I’m not sure if it’ll make much of a difference. I already find myself strained on some characters to fill the extra 12 buttons on the side of my Razer Naga mouse, so I’m not sure if I’ll make any use of the 18 macro keys, though yes I’m aware they function differently than regular keys.

The only reported downside to mechanical keyboards, the extra noise, hasn’t been a problem yet for me. Maybe I’ve just had especially noisy keyboards in the past, or maybe it’s because I often have a headset on while at the computer, but I don’t have any complaints about the noise yet (and no one else in the house has thrown anything at me, so I’m guessing it hasn’t bugged anyone else either).

Oh, and the blue lights are really, really cool.

What’s Been Happening

As many of you have  probably figured out, I’ve slipped from the WoW gold making scene, I honestly can’t remember the last time I actually played. That being said I’m starting to get an itch again to return to playing, and I went for the annual pass, so I won’t be absent for long. In the mean time I do plan on continuing this blog (yea I know I forgot about the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge half way through) with some broader topics, though I can probably slip in some more gold making topics even while I’m “away.” I realized I really enjoyed writing this blog, so if for nothing else I’m going to continue it for the stress release, but I plan on having some constructive or thought provoking articles on here. Hopefully as Mists of Pandaria approaches I’ll fall out of this pre-patch slump and get gold making and blogging again. Stay tuned.

Continue reading »]]> I’ve decided to take up the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge by Saga of Spellbound to commemorate my 3 month anniversary at the end of January. I also figured it would be a good way to get the writing juices flowing and generate some content between the usual gold making posts. On with the show!

I don’t have “usual” days. What happens depends on many things, usually my class schedule for the day. I also don’t spend much time in game anymore, so I’ll use this post to outline a play by play of how may day went today (Thursday) since it’s not the most boring day I’ve had this week.

06:00 – Alarm clock on cell phone goes off. Grope around for cell phone because it’s not in any of it’s usual spots. Finally find it on the floor between my night table and my desk and turn it off. Realize that I don’t have class till 13:30 and feel like an idiot for remember to turn my actual alarm clock off the night before, but not the one on my cell. Go back to sleep

08:00 (ish) – Mother wakes me up “Don’t you  have class?” I remind her Thursday is the day I get to sleep in (my class schedule is on the fridge), grumble how if I did have class it’d be too late now anyways, and then fall back asleep.

09:30 – Friend wakes me up by insistently texting me (she had texted me earlier at 08:30, but I obviously hadn’t responded). Agree to meet at 11:00 for some pool before class (as in billiards, not swimming).

10:00 – Actually roll out of bed. Realize I have half an hour to catch my bus. Groan when I realize I hadn’t done the post I wanted to send out for noon, and wouldn’t have time now to do it. Make tea my standard tea and toast for breakfast. Freak mother out by eating breakfast in the living room instead of in the basement T.V. room like I usually do. Proceed to get ready to leave.

10:30 – Head to bus stop, pray that this bus is on time (on Monday one bus simply didn’t show up, so I’ve been paranoid all week).

11:00 (+- 10 minutes) – Arrive at school. Fetch my usual Tim Horton’s (Large steep tea with milk and a frosted cinnamon roll). Meet Kibbles for pool (yes, we really do call her Kibbles).

11:45 – Kibbles and Bits (another friend showed up, yes we actually call her Bits – not very often though) need to leave for a lab so I ponder what to do till my first class starts. Decide to go home and skip my first lecture (we were only taking up a test of 25 multiple choice questions I guessed my way through).

12:30 – Arrive home, decide to actually do shit so I don’t feel as guilty for skipping. I manage to eat, walk the dog and write a post in this time. I felt productive.

15:30 – Last lecture of the day starts. Hope it ends early. It does, by two hours. Rejoice.

16:30 through 17:30 – More pool with Kibbles. (Yes, I spend a stupid amount of time in there)

18:00 – Arrive home, eat dinner, and enjoy house to myself for a few hours. Spend whole evening doing dick all (YouTube videos, TV, Sim City 4, misc. internet)

23:00 – Start writing this post

24:00 – Finish post and head to bed.

What an exciting life I live eh?

Check out my other posts in the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge

Continue reading »]]> I’ve decided to take up the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge by Saga of Spellbound to commemorate my 3 month anniversary at the end of January. I also figured it would be a good way to get the writing juices flowing and generate some content between the usual gold making posts. On with the show!

Well this should be interesting post. Lets see how critical about myself I can get today shall we?

Procrastination

This is probably my biggest problem in life, I put things off like you wouldn’t believe. In fact, I was intending on writing this article last night and have this schedule for noon today, but I put it off until today thinking I’d get it done in the morning (which I didn’t, because some plans changed and I had to leave earlier than I expected). I’m the type of person that if I know an assignment can be handed in 2 days late before it gets a zero, I’ll start working on it the eve of the second day. If I could magic away one bad trait, this would be the one.

Lazy

This is probably related to my procrastination, but I am probably one of the laziest people you will ever meet in life. I usually do the minimum required effort for most things I do. Combine this with my procrastination and you really have a killer combo. This is why I ended up going to college.

Obsessive Tendencies

That being said, when I do work on something, or latch onto something (a new game, a new hobby, etc.) I tend to go a bit overboard, and then usually burn out. It’s usually not destructive, as I use these obsessions as excused to not do things I wouldn’t be doing anyways (see: Procrastination) but it can be a bit bothersome. It has been getting better as I get older though (if I do say so myself).

Worry

I tend to worry about a lot of things, more than others apparently. I don’t particularly see this as a terrible thing, but sometimes I get to the point where I become physically ill with worry about things other people wouldn’t care about, worry about, or find inconsequential.

Social Awkwardness

I’m just using this as an umbrella term for myself, but I’m not exactly a social butterfly. I’ve never made friends easily, and I feel I other think things too much.

I could probably go on, but this has been kind of depressing, so I’ll just start working on tomorrows post so it can be out on time for everyone to read! (In theory at least.)

Check out my other posts in the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge

Continue reading »]]> I’ve decided to take up the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge by Saga of Spellbound to commemorate my 3 month anniversary at the end of January. I also figured it would be a good way to get the writing juices flowing and generate some content between the usual gold making posts. On with the show!

For the 10th day of this challenge, I must talk about my favourite blogs and websites. Most if not all of my favourite gold blogs are covered in my blog roll, so I guess this leaves me to talk about non gold related sites then eh?

The Bossy Pally

I originally started reading this blog because my main is (was?) a Paladin, but I’ve continued reading Ophelie’s blog long after my raiding retirement because I enjoy her writing, and she covers many interesting non World of Warcraft topics.

Kamalia et alia

I’m not usually one to follow the more artsy blogs, but ever since her Furtive Father Winter post for my blog in December, I’ve been following her blog. I’ve become a fan of her writing and art work.

Falling Leaves and Wings

I started reading Beruthiel’s blog when I started gaining interest in raiding as a Resto druid. She cover’s topics on Restoration Druids, Healing, general World of Warcraft, and many other miscellaneous topics. Again one of those blogs where I still read it even though the topic doesn’t always apply to me simply because I enjoy the writing.

The Spartz Media Network

These are the main sites I go to when I need a laugh. Or to feel good. Or when I’m bored. Or I’m avoiding doing something else.

• Six Billion Secrets (okay I obviously don’t go to this one to laugh or feel good)
• Taste of Awesome
• Smartphowned
• Unfriendable
• Ragestache

xkcd

Probably one of the funniest comics I’ve ever read, it seems to be able to hit my funny bone just right.

9gag

Lots of funny pictures, updated constantly.

Anything I Missed?

Well those are my main sites recently (again, the ones not listed already somewhere on my blog). Anyone got some other suggestions I might like?

Check out my other posts in the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge

Continue reading »]]> I’ve decided to take up the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge by Saga of Spellbound to commemorate my 3 month anniversary at the end of January. I also figured it would be a good way to get the writing juices flowing and generate some content between the usual gold making posts. On with the show!

Before I started this blog, I actually did some guest posts for other blogs, so I’ve decided to cover both my first blog post ever, and my first post on this blog.

My First Blog Post

The first blog post I ever wrote was How Does One Measure an Economy over at JMTC. At the time of writing that post I was fiddling around with a php script to quantify a market, so see how it ebbed and flowed, and to compare different economies. It was fun while it lasted, but a change in the TUJ API I was using made me abandon it, that and it wasn’t really all that useful. This article was mostly a compendium of my thoughts during the design process for this script.

First Post on The Golden Crusade

How to Exit Gracefully From the Gold Making Scene was my first post returning, again, to goblineering. I had realized how much I could have done to ease my transition back into gold making, so I decided to share some Do’s and Don’ts of the process.

Check out my other posts in the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge