China bans... Gold farming?!

No, it's not April 1st, and you're not dreaming. You might be high, I don't know what you do in your spare time, but yes you read the post title correctly.

The chinese government has put a nation-wide ban on the act of buying any virtual items or currencies with real money. Thus, nobody in China is allowed to buy gold in World of warcraft. Virtual money may only be used to buy other virtual items.


In Quote:

China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit its possible impact on the real financial system.

The government also spelled out the definition of "virtual currency" for the first time, which includes prepaid cards of cyber-games, according to a joint circular from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce Friday.

"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." it said.

Under the new rules, using virtual money for gambling will be punished by public security authorities, and minors may not buy virtual money.

The Ministry of Culture also vowed to step up supervision on money laundering via virtual credits and other illegal online activities.

The statement said Tencent had strongly opposed the underground trading of virtual money, which could enable online theft and fraud. The company would work with the authorities to combat online crimes, according to the statement.


World first?

To my knowledge, China has put down a world first with this act. Not only properly defining the difference of virtual goods and services, but also banning the transactions between real and virtual goods.

Their actual reasons? Control most likely. Though it seems a very strange move from my point of view. The country is receiving REAL money (albeit trough virtual banks transactions and credit cards) for virtual goods and services such as World of Warcraft gold and powerleveling. It is GREAT news for all us players without a doubt, but it boggles the mind why (which is presumed to be) the most dictatorial and keen to censor and block, government in the world would put such an act forward. Surely they know that "they" are the prime benefactor here? Well, if you read the declaration you'll see it's about a lot more than just WoW gold, but still.



We all know the whole "chinese gold farmer" term, how that works in practice is slightly different from the most common conception however.

See:
* Close touch with a gold farmer. Describes how one would work for 14 hours a day and earn 100-200 Yuan a month. FYI 1 yuan = 0.104 Euros (or 0.146 $). So he was making around 10-20 euros a month, for 14 hours of work a day.
* Ludens - Gold Farmers. Which further describes the human side of the "job".

Commonly these chinese youths would be forking for far less than minimal wage. (As the above comic video tells you jokingly, for less than 10 cents per hour) They'd transfer their farmed gold to a company commonly based in the USA or simply residing in china itself, who would then store and sell the gold to American, European, Australian and commonly Chinese customers for huge profit.

Such sweatshops, and endless goldspam, account hacking so they can be stripped of their value should hopefully notice a drastic reduction due to this new Chinese Law. But I don't expect them to disappear completely. As long as there are idiots willing to pay real cash for virtual gold there will always be someone willing to farm it for you. Maybe no longer from china, but there's always Nigeria.


Poll end

One poll down: "Do you agree with the JC Nerf?".
Seems the crowd is rather divided about Blizzard's choice to change the dragon's eyes from being prismatic, to only a single color.

* Yes - 40 (48%)
* No - 32 (38%)
* I'd have done it different - 11 (13%)

Somewhat lacking in votes people!
And a new one up: "Have you ever bought gold?"
Go on, be honest.

Epic Gems

One gem no more It's all over the news, BBC, NBC, CNN, your local radio, the lot. If you haven't heard of it yet, you might want to consider coming from under your rock. This morning, Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958) has died from an overdose. He was 50 years old. Image source: last.fm I'll not bore you with the obscure and not so pretty details of his past, the many facial surgeries, his troubled youth, or his recent financial issues. I'm sure you've read or heard all about it on other sites by now. Just let me say this. The man was EPIC. (Legendary even) Today's blog post is dedicated to his memory. Never forget. Epic gems in 3.2 As you may have already learned, patch 3.2 will bring everyone epic gems, readily available. Rare gems give +16 stats, Epic gems provide you with +20. The new gems are: * Purple: Dreadstone * Blue: Majestic Zircon * Green: Eye of Zul * Yellow: King's Amber * Orange: Ametrine * Red: Cardinal Ruby Gem sources: * Transmutation. As above. * Honor points. 10.000 honor per uncut gem. * Prospecting Titanium Ore. Pretty random, low chance. * Badges. 15 badges give one uncut gem. Patterns to cut the gems into a usable form cost 5 Jewelcrafter's tokens each. Or, a bunch of honor, or stonekeeper's shards for the PvP equivalents. So, what does this mean for your profession bonuses? I mean, blacksmithing has two sockets right? So, they'd be getting 2x +20 stats. Well, Blizzard has come up with a solution to that "issue" by giving all the other professions a slight boost in their special perks as well. As was described a few days back. As it turns out however, Jewelcrafting is stil set to remain Unique(3), and the dragon's eyes will give no less than 14 stats more than epic gems. This means, indeed, that Jewelcrafters will be receiving +42 stats in total. Compared to most / all other professions who will be receiving +40 to all stats, that's a whole "2" stats more! Now, you and me will recall that Blizzard nerfed Jewelcrafting because "too many people were using it", simply because it was the most rewarding profession out there. And it seems, this will still remain the case. Of course, it would EASILY be fixed by simply changing the Dragon's Eyes to be either Unique(2) or Unique(4), and have them in turn provide 40 or 30 stats total. You'd end up with a neat and perfectly balanced +40 stats for the profession perk. Just like all other professions. Who knows how Blizzard thinks though, but some of the developers need to get a checkup. Idiots. And then I haven't even started on the ridiculously (underpowered) benefit of having Engineering instead of any of the other primary professions...

Newbie guide to starting BvS

BvS, or Billy vs Snakeman is an online text based browser game that I've mentioned before, and am actually still playing. It's a funny time waster that (unlike most time wasters) doesn't actually cost "that" much time. This post is a total and blatantly obvious recruitment post. But seriously, give it a try. The worst that could happen is that you wasted some time reading all this ;) Background The game is loosely based on a large variety of known and vaguely familiar Anime series. Naruto (Check that amv) being one of the primary ones. Bleach, Death Note, .//Hack, Gundam, Code Geass, Lucky Star, and quite a few more. It's a huge anime parody! The game was launched around October, 2007. New features have been added every few months since. Arena, Monochrome academy, The wasteland and more. As of recently .//Hack r00t and Zombies were added as well. You'll see soon enough at any rate. Beginnings Start off by following this link. You should be taken to a page that looks much like below. You can't fail this part really. Just click the giant "click here to sign up" button and you've already completed half the sign up process. Now you'll see a screen where you can select a basic avatar, username, pass, email and security code. As well as yours truly as your benevolent referrer. It says the email is optional, but it's not really. I've never in the many months that I've been signed up received any kind of newsletter of spam, but you can always uses your secondary email if you're feeling twitchy about it. Type in your Ninja's name and hit Make Character and you're ready to go. You'll get a basic info screen informing you of your very first team mate. From here on forth you'll quickly notice the game isn't to be taken too serious, as you'll be kicking others in the junk, eating pie, killing zombie ninjas, sneaking around and all sorts of things. In text form obviously. Preparations You'll quickly arrive at your primary screen. Notice you've got mail! This will direct you to a more expansive explanation of the current game mechanics and details of all stats, leveling, trade, items and pretty much all you need to know for the first season. You start off as level 6! Not level one like most RPGs. Your total "level" is basically a combination of your three primary stats: Gen, Nin, Tai. The game is based on a rolling system for missions. For example a mission could be 7D 2S. This means you need to roll two times 7 or higher to succeed at a mission. Your basic roll has a range of 1-10, and your levels determine how many dice you roll. So initiall, you'd be rolling only two dice. (My own character is rolling 50 dice with a 30 range or so, you'll get stronger quite quickly) There's also another stat called Strength which you'll receive in due time. Strength basically increases the lower roll. So a 1-10 base range +1 strength would result in a 2-10 roll. (It's actually slightly better than that, but I'll not confuse you too much for now) At the bottom of the page you'll see a "BvS Video Challenge" which will provide you with 30 bonus stamina every day, as well as a lottery ticket which can be turned in at the party house (Gambling hall). Secondly, there's the plain "Bonus Stamina Box" which will give you another 40 stamina as well as an extra 100 stamina every 7 consecutive days that you use this. Now, stamina is the primary limiting factor of how many actions your character can do in a single day. You start off with 200 as you just saw, but this number quickly increases trough bonus stamina, village bonuses (We'll get to that in a few), item bonuses, team bonuses and potions. Speaking of potions, check out the "One-Use Items" box on your main screen. Select the Bitter Medicine and select Use Item to get another 40 stamina for today. You have two, so you can use another tomorrow. (Appetite is a limiting factor in food consumption) Now, missions cost 10 stamina, quests cost 10 stamina per step, some village actions cost 10-20 stamina, and there's a lot of other things you can spend stamina on. Don't worry there's plenty to discover. And the main reason for this small guide is the fact that a LOT of people are either overwhelmed by the game, or don't bother trying with it after the first day. But, you have to keep in mind this is something you play for 10-30 or so minutes in a given day. Another preparation, is to join a village. I recommend looking trough the "top villages" list and joining one with a decent number of upgrades in it. 120+ or more. But for now you can always just click the village button at the top of your screen and simply choose to "Jump Into a Village". This means you can skip the village application process, but you'll generally end up in a small village which is poorly developed. For this basic guide I wandered my testing character into Eldarado Village. Sorry guys, you can kick my little nublet later. If you're lucky, your village will have a dumpster in the storehouse filled with crap to help new and aspiring ninjas just like you! Look for an item called Medicinal Herbs, it's a pretty common item which, if not found in the dumpster you should be able to request of your village's storehouse manager. The reason you want to get this item is because it allows you to get an amazingly valuable ally called Stalker girl. Don't bother doing that quest until you're level 4 in Tai though, most likely you'll fail otherwise. Another item to look for is the Shogi Piece, this opens another quest, but you should probably not attempt it until you're level 5-6 in Nin. Starting up Now that you've taken care of the day's preparation, and perhaps read some info in the FAQ page you're ready to actually get started. And we'll start by doing some missions. The first goal is to just get 6000 JXP, which you can then use to buy some skills you'll need to complete the first of a three day quest called Three Day Tour, Tour Day Two and Tour Day Three. As you can expect, it'll take three days to complete all of those. Lets start off by making our life a bit easier, as level 2 is "really" poor. Luckily, as a starting genin you start off with 15000 JXP for free! Click the Jutsu menu in the top and learn the following skills off flipper: Clone jutsu (+1 levels, thats awesome for now) as well as Disguise Jutsu, which you'll need to pass the first quest. Now, click Quests in the top menu and start Three Day Tour. * Pack your bags: Use clone jutsu here, the roll requires 3D3S. If at first you don't succeed just try again. * The next step asks if you're in a village, which you totally should be! * You've completed a village action. /facepalm, totally forgot about that one. Click village in the top menu (Don't worry you can continue your quest without starting over) Then scroll down a little and look for the Patrol option. It costs some stamina, but not that much. Some (big) villages even have special upgrades installed which GIVE you stamina when you patrol. Click quests in the top menu and continue to the next step. * Sneaking Out: Use disguise jutsu to beat this 10D10S challenge. Automatic win! You'll gain your very first permanent item! A banana sticker +1 Gen level. It also informs you to return tomorrow for the next part of the quest. Notice your "Chakra: 140/200" Chakra is your Ninja Mana, it is used whenever you use special skills to aid you in a rolling challenge and can be restored by paying 10 stamina. Or 5 if you have certain items to help you in that. Missions You are still only level 6 at this time, so it's time to put some time into changing that. Once you reach level 12 you can become a Chunin rank ninja, which will provide you with a new mission type, and give you more stamina and appetite on a daily basis. The base ranks are: Genin, Chunin, Sp.Jonin, Jonin, Sannin, r00t. Ranks are obtained trough quests when you are the appropriate level. So anyway, click the missions button in the top menu. The number of options you have right now seems rather small, but as you increase in rank a lot more mission types will open to you. C-Rank, B-Rank, A-Rank, AA-Rank, S-Rank, Burgerninja, Reaper, Wasteland, Outskirts, Monochrome. And you'll be able to pick a specific stat to focus on if you wish. Let's start with D-Rank for now. The first mission my nublet got served was a D6S1 mission, fairly easy and shouldn't require any chakra use to complete. He rolled 8 and 5, meaning the mission was a success! He also found an ally called Lil' Whitey. Missions are fairly random, and you will probably not get the same mission, you will get your extra ally quite rapidly though. Lets start with putting Lil' Whitey into the party. This is easily done by clicking the team menu at the top of the screen, and selecting the ninjas you wish into your party. It guides itself really. Lil' whitey gives +1 tai strength and +1 tai levels! Which so happens to be exactly what I need to have a realistic chance at getting Stalker Girl, as mentioned earlier. Lets not get ahead of ourselves though. The second mission I got was: * Taijutsu - Eat your Ninja Rations : D5S2 Since your Tai skill is likely still only 2, this means you have about a 50% chance of success. You can greatly improve this by using Clone Jutsu to get +1 levels. You see, it's pretty straightforward at this point. Next I got: * Ninjutsu - Tree Climbing Training : D7S1 Totally failed that one. Sadly. Such is the way of things as a low level player. Do a lot of D-Rank missions until you run out of stamina for today. Don't be afraid to charge chakra using stamina. It's often better to spend the little extra and succeed at a mission, rather than fail the next three. Keep an eye out in specific for the following missions, as you'll need these allies during the day two part of the tour quest. Emosuke: * Hidden at Hiding in Smoke. * Hidden at Ninja Leaping Practice. * Hidden at Practice Hand Symbols. Pinky: * Hidden at Babysit the Ninja Academy. * Hidden at Feel The Flow. * Hidden at Hiding! Billy: * Check Out a Ninja Centerfold. * Missing Pet Tora. * Sneak out of Detention. Eventually you'll have enough AP gained to level in one of your three main stats. This will significantly make your D-Rank missions in that stat easier. Tour Day Two The second day. A typical Billy day ends at around 12.15 - 12.20 CET (gmt+1), this is called the Dayroll. After the dayroll you'll be given fresh stamina, appetite and village bonuses. It depends how many upgrades your village has, hence it's a good idea to jump into a large village. (I can't really repeat that enough I guess) The only disadvantage of joining a large village is that you'll have a larger mission-ryo tax rate. In my opinion however, the bonuses and extra features you get are well worth it. To start off, you'll want to get your daily bonus stamina, and do your village patrol task. You get more stamina, thus can do more actions and grow a stronger ninja! Don't forget to eat your second bitter medicine as well, as it's useless later. The first step of tour day two requires you to help your village out again, which you just did, right? * Next, you're asked whether you've obtained Billy, Pinky, and Emosuke. These three important allies, and if you didn't manage to get all three yesterday you'll have to continue doing regular missions until you get them. They don't have to be in your party though. * The third part of the second day quest requires you to gain knowledge of special teams. These give you additional bonuses on top of the stats the allies give on their own. One such team is Billy + Flipper. Go to the teams menu, then select those two to be able to continue the quest. * The final part of day two requires that you've gotten your daily bonus stamina. Easy enough. As a reward, he tears off your banana sticker and replaces it with a rainbow sticker. +1 Gen and Nin Levels. Spend whatever stamina you have left gaining additional levels. You'll also open up a bloodline quest at level 9, this allows you to get special powers relating to that bloodline, and is a requirement to being able to finish the chunin quest which opens up at level 12. You can skip to the bottom and do initiate that quest before day three, but getting the bonus item first really helps. If you didn't manage to get lucky enough to find all the 3 required allies, not to fear (it happens) you can continue the quest the next day. Bloodlines Choosing a bloodline is permanent, but each time you loop into a new season you can pick a different one. So you won't be stuck with it forever. Your choices are: * RedEye: +7% XP bonus per rank. * WhiteEye: +1 levels per rank. * Legacy: +15 bonus stamina per rank. There are more benefits to your bloodlines, but you'll find those out later. As a new season 1 genin, I can highly recommend taking up WhiteEye as this gives you +1 levels each time you increase in ninja rank. Meaning all rolling challenges are immediately a LOT easier. Tour Day Three The third day of the newbie quest, and likely your last day as a lowly Genin. Be sure to get your daily stamina bonus, and help your village by patrolling. This day it's not a requirement of the quest, but it's a good idea to make it into a habit. Subsequently, the third day is also rather short. It introduces you to a rolling challenge of D4S15. Unlike regular mission challenges a pure rolling challenge remembers the number of successes you've had so far, and reduces the S* by your number of previous successes. So, simply roll the dice and beat the mission. As a reward you'll lose your rainbow sticker and it gets replaced by the: Monster Mask (+1 Levels, +10 Stamina per day)! The Chunin Exam All Ninja must eventually prove their worth to their superiors, and so do you. Once you've reached level 12 (which you should have by now) you'll gain access to the quest Chunin Exam. 1. Cost to Attempt Test: 250-500 Ryo. 2. You are given ten multiple-choice questions. 3. You need a score of 3 to pass. 4. If you are caught cheating, you get a two-point penalty. 5. If you are caught cheating five times, you automatically fail. 6. Don't do what that OTHER guy did and just sit through the whole test - that doesn't work anymore. 7. Even if all of the answers look the same, there's still only one correct one. This is quite easy, and you shouldn't need more than two attempts to complete the first part of the exam. Simply guess randomly "but write down the ones you got correctly". If for whatever reason you didn't manage to guess at least 3 answers correctly, you can simply do the test again and guess different ones. Just be sure to re-use the correct ones. In later seasons you'll need more correct answers, and the same technique works to pass the test. A WINNER IS YOU! You and your partner party hard! Congratulations! A new quest will be available once you passed the test. Forest of Death * Get Back a Scroll: A simple D5S2 challenge. * Sneak past an ambush: A D7S2 challenge. * The second scroll: A D6S3 challenge. * Last Dash: A D5S4 challenge. Due to needing 4 successes you'll probably want to use Clone Jutsu here. After that four-part quest another (final) quest opens up. Final Fight This tests: * Whether you have at least 6 allies in total, shouldn't be too hard. * Learned 8 jutsu, simply buy all the remaining ones from flipper and one other for 10.000 xp. I can recommend Emosuke's fireball jutsu as you'll need that one later. * You've beaten 40 or more D-Rank missions. If you haven't done so yet you'll need to go back to completing some more. Don't forget you can get your daily bonus stamina to help in this. * And lastly, whether you've got at least one basic bloodline. Which you did at level 9. You are now Chunin rank. You now get 180 Stamina per day, can get your picture taken in the shop, can have three total teammates, and have tons of other things unlocked! You can also go on C-rank missions, and on top of all that, K-Dog walks up and joins you! The C-rank missions will allow you to level up some of your allies to lvl 2, they give more XP and more Ryo. Keep at it until one of your stats reaches 12 and you'll unlock the next exam. So, get started if you hadn't already.

Midsummer mess up

Last year I posted a guide for the midsummer festival here. It's still there, but there were no achievements then. Now, there are. And, as it turns out, you need two very annoying achievements in order to complete what most of us started and as good as finished last year. Torch juggler requires you to buy 40 torches off one of the vendors in your capital cities. Orgrimmar for example. 5 torches cost 5 blossoms. So you need 40 in total for that. Pole Dancer is a bit more tricky. You need Vestment of summer, Sandals of Summer, Mantle of the fire festival. A grand total of 400 blossoms required!? Lets calculate that... There are "15" days that the fire festival is active. Only 14 where your blossoms stay active however. The Only way to get more blossoms if you've already ALL the desecrations and honoring the flames last year.... Are "two" daily quests. But, that's not all! Those two daily quests only award 5 blossoms each. Meaning, 10 blossoms per day, for 14 days long = "at most" 140 blossoms. The only salvation is that the torches aren't soulbound, so you can grab those with an alt and save your main 40 blossoms. So, bear with me here, but... if you need 100+100+200 = 400 blossoms for the outfits. And you can get 10*14 = 140 blossoms at most. Then, no matter what you do this year you will be 260 blossoms short of being able to complete the achievement. Blizzard messed up. Lets all cry on the forums and let them know, or something. Obviously the "honor the flame" quests should have reset this year, but for whatever reason it seems they did not. Small update Looks like there's 120 blossoms to be had in Northrend (Credit to Morendhil at wowhead) Honoring your own faction's fire gives +5, the opposing faction gives +10. Thus 8x5 + 8x10 = 120 total. Sadly, that means we are still 120 short of completing the achievements. Dragonblight H: Agmar's Hammer 39,48 Dragonblight A: Wintergarde Keep 75,44 Borean Tundra H: Bor'gorok Outpost 51,12 Borean Tundra A: Fizzcrank Airstrip 55,20 Sholazar Basin H: River's Heart 47,62 Sholazar Basin A: River's Heart 48,66 Storm Peaks H: K3 40,86 Storm Peaks A: K3 42,87 Zul'Drak H: Argent Stand 43,71 Zul'Drak A: Argent Stand 41,61 Grizzly Hills H: Conquest Hold 19,62 Grizzly Hills A: Amberpine Lodge 34,61 Howling Fjord H: Camp Winterhoof 48,13 Howling Fjord A: Fort Wildervar 58,16 Crystalsong Forest H: Sunreaver's Command 80,53 Crystalsong Forest A: Windrunner's Overlook 78,75 Note on buying the garments Keep in mind that as of 3.1.2 or thereabouts, you can sell back items to vendors for 30 minutes and get a full refund. Thus "once" the issue is fixed, and you got your 400 blossoms, you can buy the garments and do the pole dance then sell back the garments to get your blossoms back. After this you can buy the spirit and anything else you wish to spend the tokens on. ETA on Fix There is no ETA, however the bug has been acknowledged and will be fixed asap. Info thanks to Grimlor from MMOC. Also for now, the new BC faction cities: Silvermoon and the Draenei Landing have "apparently" reset. Which makes an additional +15 blossoms. Update2: It's been Hotfixed! However as a result, anyone who was halfway done with the achievements will have to do them again, from scratch. Ick. Not a very clean fix, but at least we can get the marks now.

Gamespy hosting, shutting down

Economic recession, whatever. It's just a word, and it's being repeated enough to scare some people. At any rate, IGN / Gamespy is shutting down ALL of it's free hosting. No idea what will happen to the comic: Flintlocke or Flint vs the horde. Or any of the planethalflife, planetquake etc subhosted sites. Or that dead site of mine for halflife crosshairs... Time will tell. How does ANY of this affect you, readers? Not so much really, but I felt like sharing ;) Here's the mail most of the account holders have received, myself included: Dear whoever, This is just a follow up/final reminder after our first communication to you on 26th-27th May that we are shutting down the IGN Hosting Services and to remind you that if you haven’t already, you need to migrate your files and database by 11.59 PM, 31st August 2009 (the “Cut-Off Date”), otherwise you will no longer have access or right to access or use any aspect of your site that IGN was hosting and IGN will have the right to delete and remove from our servers all aspects of your site. As set out in our Hosting Terms of Service, this is our second and final notice to you before we shut the IGN Hosting Services down. (A) Shutting Down of IGN Hosting After years of quality free hosting for gaming sites, we have decided to discontinue our free hosting services. We know that this will come as a shock and a disappointment to you; in this e-mail we will explain why this decision was made, when the shutdown will occur, and what the next steps are for the many hosted site owners who will be affected. The primary reason for the discontinuation of the free hosting is one of compatibility. At IGN, we are in the process of moving to a new data centre, and a number of our operations are incompatible with it, including the free hosting service. At this time we regretfully are not in a position to carry out the additional work needed to make the hosting service compatible. We are all extremely grateful for you having chosen us as your site's host, and as such want to do all that we can to make your transition to a new hosting provider as easy and seamless as possible. We will maintain the hosting service, with full technical support, up until the Cut Off Date (11.59 PM, 31st August 2009), giving you a further two months or so in order to organize a migration. Please note however that the Cut-Off Date is hard and fast - there will be no extension of the service after this date and backups of your databases and content etc. will not be maintained. Anything that you want to keep MUST be downloaded to your computer before the Cut-Off Date. Please note: if you don’t migrate your files and database by the Cut-Off Date, you will no longer have access or right to access or use any aspect of your site that IGN was hosting and IGN will have the right to delete and remove from our servers all aspects of your site. For more information, please see Section 21 of our Hosting Terms of Service. To summarize: The Hosting Services will end on 11.59 PM, August 31st, 2009. No backups or snapshots will be maintained after that date (download everything you wish to keep). You will no longer have access to your site or any aspects of it (content, assets, files etc.) after that date and we will remove/delete all such files from our servers. There is a number of alternative free webhosts you could investigate here: http://hosting.ign.com/faq.php. FAQs and guidance for migrating sites is available here: http://hosting.ign.com/faq.php. We are keen to help your migration go as smoothly as possible; contact us if you require any further information in connection with you site migration at: techsupport@gamespynetwork.com. File hosting at FilePlanet and Direct2Drive referral schemes may continue (with the latter including a 8% commission bonus). Again, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for contributing to the world's greatest network of independently owned gaming sites, and wish you all the best of luck should your site(s) continue at another host. Please, contact us (techsupport@gamespynetwork.com) if you have any questions in connection with the migration of your site. Nothing less than a pain in the sitting meat. So, if you haven't already downloaded ALL of Flintlocke before, you might want to consider doing it soon! Though, since the comic is technically an article of gamespy itself it should be safe in theory. The thing that annoys me the most of gamespy affiliated sites? That damn interstitial fullscreen advertisement that blocks your screen anytime you visit a page. Plus, gamespy has gotten slow as a slug on sea salt. Can't say I'll miss the hosting, but still hope most of PHL and alike will remain. They do have their uses. Anyone remember Quake 2 - Nighthunters? Awesome mod. Lots of fun.

More 3.2 news, PTR active

3.2 seems to be speeding up suddenly. PTR patch notes! The Big and complete list can be found at MMOC, WoR, WR and a some other sites. But those won't have all the comments attached to it that you're used to from seeing on this blog! Some of the highlights Instances * Crusaders' Coliseum. A new 25, 10 and 5 man instance. Inside are 5 bosses. * The Nexus: The Oculus and The Eye of Eternity: All mounted drakes used in these instances now scale with item level just like the vehicles in Ulduar. * Isle of Conquest. A new 40 vs 40 siege style PvP battleground. * Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph. * Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism. - Well crud, that really dumbs down the value of those badges. * The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable. - Le sigh. Rogues * Rogues get to use AXES!, no it's no joke. We actually get to use AXES! * Sword spec is renamed to hack 'n slash and also applies to axes. * Sadly there are no axes worth noting available for rogues yet. Seriously, it's been something rogues have been asking for since Molten core and BWL, but then they finally add it,,... and there's no Axes worth using. * Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes. Don't you just wish you had rolled an Orc instead of a damn Undead or Troll now eh? Other Classes * New druid art for cat and bear forms has been added. And they look damn awesome! Some other 3.2 related stuff Mount changes, as stated last week. Level 20 players can now learn 60% riding speed, and level 60 players can learn the flying mount skill. Cooking: Chef's Hat is now superior quality and allows the chef to cook faster. Totally worth it! Also, of note XP gain in battlegrounds coming in 3.2 You'll only gain XP from "actions" such as capping a flag, not killing other players. * Also, you can disable this feature if you wish your character to remain at a certain twink level. (Insert boos and hisses here) * That same feature also applies to your regular PvE experience gaining (Insert spitting and yelling here) It's good that blizzard is implementing a small bonus for low level pvp, but quite sad that they don't want to flush out the twink playstyle. Last, but certainly not least Epic Gems! Jewelcrafters get the recipes in all the usual ways: Buy with honor points, Jewelcrafting tokens, and all the usual ways. Also, you can get epic gems by prospecting titanium ore. I suggest you start hoarding that junk, because prices will skyrocket within minutes of this news, if it hasn't already. Alchemists can also make them, emblems of heroism can buy them (25 or 50 instead of 10 badges at a guess) and they're a rare drop from the icy prism. Wait, epic gems?! Freely available for all to use? Doesn't that mean that your "oh so precious" Jewelcrafting skill will be worthless after the recent nerf? No, as predicted not quite. I love it when I'm right, seriously, makes me feel like Nostradamus himself or something. Here's what's going to happen: * Blacksmithing: No change. Just buy two new shiny epic gems for your two bonus sockets and you'll have +40 stats. * Enchanting: Values on Northrend ring enchants increased. 2x +20 stats instead of +16 stats. Nice, no need to learn new enchants it seems. * Alchemy: The Mixology benefits from Northrend elixirs and flasks have been increased. Likely to give you +80 Attack power on a flask of Endless Rage. And equivalend +40 stat values on other flasks for all classes. * Inscription: Existing master inscriptions increased. From 32 stat bonus equivalent over the sons of hodir ones to 40. * Jewelcrafting: Dragons eyes improved. It'll remain to be seen whether you get +39 or +42 stats total, since "40/3" doesn't really come out with a nice round number. So, instead of Unique(3) I suspect they'll become Unique(4) and be made into 30 stats per gem for a total of +40 stats like all other professions. * Leatherworking: Fur lining values increased, from 32 to 40 stats. * Mining: Toughness rank 6 provides more stamina now. * Skinning: Anatomy now provides 40 crit rating instead of 32. * Herbalism: Increased healing from Lifeblood Rank 6, it also scales with your max hp somewhat. Whether that's worth 40 stats, not unless you PvP a lot I guess. * Tailoring: Embroideries improved. You still won't get 40 stats worth out of it, but at least you don't get nailed as bad as engineering. Feel free to cry on the forums about this fact, since blizzard does not care. Likely they feed on your tears as much as Algalon does. * Engineering: Gets fucking shafted as usual. Well, pretty much. Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications. "Hopefully" these will properly account to +40 stats, but if you've been engineer as long as my primary character has... yeah... don't get your hopes up. While talking about engineering anyhow... This one's pretty cool: * Spynocular belt enchantment changed to a Brassbolt Rebreather, allowing engineers to breathe underwater. Shame I didn't need that.

On with the nerfs

As it seems the majority of the player base is starting to reach Yogg Saron, the QQ on the official forums is probably increasing, and as a result the nerfing. Nerfing? Well, 're-balancing' and 'fixes' could be another wording for it. Some fixes as of 11 July: * The Yogg-Saron encounter has received the following changes: Death Ray no longer hits players who are under the effect of Malady of the Mind, Guardians of Yogg-Saron no longer use Dominate Mind, the spawn rate of Guardians of Yogg-Saron is more forgiving, and these Guardians will no longer spawn if a player that is protected by Hodir’s Flash Freeze hits an Ominous Cloud. * In the opening sequence of Ulduar you can now see Liquid Pyrite from farther away. * The Flame Leviathan encounter has received the following changes: the bonus health Flame Leviathan receives per tower has been reduced, the ejection height from Flame Leviathan has been reduced, the snare effect of the Tower of Frost has been removed, and the cannons on Demolishers and Siege Enginers should now break Flash Frozen vehicles in 1 shot. * The XT-002 Deconstructor encounter has received the following changes: the health of the heart has been slightly reduced in heroic difficulty and the rate at which Gravity Lapse and Searing Light are cast has been reduced. Mounts for lvl 20? On another note, mount level restrictions have been changed again. First you could get a 60% mount at level 40, then it became 30. And you've guessed it, in patch 3.2 the restriction will be set to 20. Level 20 twinks and alts with a 60% speed mount. Should make things very interesting. Mounts only cost 1g each now, so even high level players who haven't already stacked their stables yet will be pleased to know this achievement will now be significantly cheaper to reach! Further details include: * Epic lvl 60 mount was obtainable at lvl 50 or 55 before, but can now be obtained at level 40 and costs 50g to learn, 10g for the mount. * Rare lvl 70 mount is now 150% flight speed - up from 60% - and the flying skill can be learned at level 60. Paladin and warlock mounts will follow the same level restrictions. Shaman and druid shapeshift as well as hunter aspect will be trainable at level 16 instead of 20 or 30. The Epic (280-310) flying speed skill remains at level 70. Good news for those still making alts at least :P

Behold internets!

It's a comic!
And not just any comic either. It's the comic this blog was named after.

Long story really, I've had an idea lying around for a comic for ages but never really had time (or skill) to put it into something that would be cool enough to share. Still don't really. However, someone way more skilled in drawing, inking, and well, pretty much everything that makes a comic decided the idea was interesting enough to make it "real"! It's not a warcraft comic, but that shouldn't deter you from reading it.


Random Ravings of a Madman


(Click for larger version - yes, I know better image hosting is needed.
See the mirror on Drunk Duck if imageshack breaks down due to bandwidth usage.)

So if you guys enjoy the comic, she "might" be persuaded to draw more in the future.
You can find more of her art here at Deviant Art.

Drop a comment and let us know what you think!

We got a forum

No need for a huge post about this (heading for bed anyhow), but I just opened up a forum. Could be useful in the long run. It'll need a better theme, and a lot of settings. And I'm not even sure whether it's properly sending account activation emails ^,^

So, if anyone wants to give it a try for me, would be nice.

Note, for ease of access I also added a link to the forum in the navigation bar here.

Edit 2: New forum link instead of the one posted earlier. It'll have some small google ads later, but honestly this was the best I could find for now. If the forums prove popular enough I can sort out a paid version later. For now, this will do. Go register and voice your opinion! I know, empty forums are scary 'n all.