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My Goals For 2012
I’m usually not big on making New Year’s resolutions. That’s mostly due to the word “resolution”, which feels like it should mean “promises I know deep down there’s no way I’ll keep.” Using the word just feels like an escape clause, and I don’t want to submarine myself before I even get out of the gate. I am therefore not making resolutions this year. I’m making optimistic predictions as to what I will accomplish in 2012.
- Keep finding reasons to play WoW. I probably would have gone whole-hog into SWTOR if it hadn’t been for my brother, aka my online enabler. He got me started playing Everquest, then he got me playing WoW. He doesn’t play as much as I do, or as often. He’ll pay for a month, let that month run out, then take a break for a couple of weeks before starting up again. But he’s my brother, and my best friend, and so as long as he finds WoW interesting I’ll be that much more motivated to keep playing. Don’t get me wrong, there are other reasons I enjoy playing the game. I love the gold making aspect, the achievements, getting interesting outfits for my characters to mog. As long as I can set a goal for myself, I can motivate myself to log in.
- Get a serious gaming rig. I might have considered staying with SWTOR if I owned a computer that let me play the game without wanting to put my foot through the monitor. The graphics moved like an old-timey flip-book animation. I had to shut absolutely everything off or set it to the lowest level, then play in a windowed mode at 800×600. I’d get frustrated just struggling through the cutscenes. I don’t have that problem with WoW for the most part, small blessing for ancient graphics engine. But most of my interaction with the game is solo, which leads to…
- Raiding. I don’t even care about the loot. Seriously. I’m not a slave to purples. I just like the fellowship that forms between people who raid together (I hear good things). I’ve played WoW for four or five years now, am a member in one of the largest guilds in the World, and I still don’t feel that camaraderie. That’s mostly my fault, being the antisocial butterfly that I am. This year I want to change that. Also, Deathwing set me on fire once. For that, I want to chop off his balls.
- The AIE Podcast. This is my way to interact with the community that I’ve been a part of for the past few years. I’ve been motivated to do things I’d always wanted to do but put off. Submitting a segment to the AIE podcast is one of them. I don’t do public speaking, and I still feel a bit awkward when I record them, but I’m three segments in (“Ask Jeeves” for the win) and I’m really having fun. A couple people seem to dig it too which helps with the motivation.
- Improve the blog. Better url setup, a better looking page, and hopefully better content. It has taken me a long time to find my blogging voice. I feel like I’m almost there, so this year I want to make it happen. Whatever it is.
- Go to Blizzcon again. Blizzcon 2011 was my second time at the ‘con, and I went Lone Wolf the entire time. I saw many people from a distance, but my heart really wasn’t in it this year. My Mom had just started going through chemotherapy and radiation treatment for brain cancer, and literally an hour after returning home from Blizzcon I had to get in my car and drive over six hours to start college the next day. Oh, and I had to buy a brand new ticket to make that flight, essentially burning the old one. Mind and body were definitely elsewhere. If I get another crack at Blizzcon this year, I want to get more out of it by interacting with more gamers, more guildies, and more people.
How about you? Have you set any goals for yourself in 2012?
Guardian Cub – Gold Sale or Gold Sink?
People can be such irrational drama queens.
Blizzard will do something from a business standpoint, and folks lose their minds. Case in point, the Pet Store. When Blizzard started selling in-game pets for out of game money, people lost their shit. Blizzard became money-hungry in the eyes of the ignorant masses, and by offering vanity pets for dollars they were breaking the game, and killing puppies. It was so obviously just a matter of time before you could simply buy epics, buy levels, and buy gold. So obvious.
The fact that people actually bought the stuff en masse, thereby encouraging Blizzard to sell more pets/mounts, was lost on the masses.
Watching people unravel like this drives me up the wall. They make assumptions based on nothing but wild speculation, ignoring the fact that people have been buying TCG loot cards on eBay for hundreds of dollars since the card game first came out. The second it was Blizzard offering up vanity items for a reasonable price (compared to the loot cards), it was a crime against common decency. It was as if players were being ordered at gunpoint that they had to buy these stupid things or no more gameplay for them.
Fast forward to the Guardian Cub. Well once again, it was so obvious that Blizzard was doing this as a way to subvert the gold sellers. More importantly, it was Blizzard’s way of selling gold without actually selling gold. Why, Blizz even said as much, stating that people who bought the Guardian Cub could sell it on the Auction House since it wasn’t a soulbound item.
I saw the Guardian Cub as something else. It wasn’t Blizzard’s way of “selling gold”, since it wasn’t actually introducing more gold into the economy. What they were doing was selling a gold sink, rather than introducing a new one in-game. People were going to pay for this gold sink, and server economy was going to determine how much that sink was. Assuming, of course, that people bought the pet to sell rather than use like any other vanity pet.
For the first time, I think Blizzard did something a little underhanded. They played on the natural greed and laziness of the player base and planted that gold-making seed. Hell, even WoW Gold Bloggers knew it wasn’t going to be successful for long. After a couple of weeks, the pet price would bottom out and it wouldn’t be the gold grab people thought it would be.
Turns out it only took a couple of days.
I checked several servers on the Undermine Journal and after about three days, prices seem to be sitting at 5-8k gold. AHSpy did a better job and listed the average across all servers, which for U.S. servers appears to be about 8600 gold. Eight and a half thousand gold for a ten dollar pet. A quick Google search came back with gold sellers offering up prices of about one dollar per one thousand gold. Even the mouth breathers can do the math on this one.
The Guardian Cub seems to be showing a shift in Blizzard’s marketing approach. Instead of playing to people’s ego and vanity by giving them cute things to buy, Blizzard hit them in their greedy spot and scored in a big way. I would not be surprised if they announce at some point that the Guardian Cub is their best seller to date. If they do, I guarantee those sales aren’t just because that thing looks cute. Once again, the players will be to blame for the success of the pet.
And once again, the players will bitch about Blizzard selling it in the first place.
Chaos Orbs In Patch 4.3
Very excited about this latest blue post regarding Chaos Orbs:
We have just made the following change in the PTR:
In 4.3,
Chaos Orbs are no longer soulbound! Everyone will be able to roll on new orbs that drop, and any existing chaos orbs will become tradeable.
This excites me to no end. My blacksmith will be pleased at this new development.
Patch 4.3 Lets You Play Dress-Up
In the upcoming Patch 4.3, players are finally going to be able to reskin their armor and weapons. There’s a few minor hiccups as to what you’re allowed to use, but for the most part you’re limited only to what you have in your inventory. I decided to get busy and get my hands on some cool weapons that I’ll be able to use the skins for. All this talk about using skins makes me feel like Wild Bill from Silence of the Lambs.
The downside is that I now need to spec into Single Minded Fury so that I can dual-weild two one-handed swords, thereby making me into one badass Sith Warrior.
Adonis DNA Isn’t Cheap
Boys and girls, springtime is upon us once again! A time when the solstace sun pries back winter’s frosty fingers, cold blankets of snow melt away, flowers emerge from their icy tomb, and Life blooms once again.
It’s also the time of year when Blizzard tries to find ways to suck even more cash out of our pockets.
Jesus.
With games like Rift tearing things up, Star Wars – The Old Republic on the horizon, and Blizz itself hesitant to release new raid content to keep players from fleeing like a witness from a crime scene, it takes wrecking-ball sized testicles to go for the financial jugular one more time.
I can only imagine what their motivation was behind this latest fleecing –
Mike Morhaime: *Lights cigar with the corner of the Mona Lisa* Okay, we’ve hooked the masses with this whole “Guild” thing. Good job team.
Developer: Thank you sir!
Morhaime: *Blows a dollar-sign smoke ring* Now my good friend Bobby Kotick is concerned there might not be enough cocaine money for his meeting with Charlie Sheen that we’ve scheduled for next quarter.
Dev: We’re getting Charlie Sheen?
Morhaime: *Plays wicked air guitar* Damn rights! BK’s hoping to talk The Sheen into doing one of our World of WarCraft celebrity commercials. You know what I’m talking about. The “What’s Your Game” bit that we did with Will Shatner, and that little guy from Austin Powers! I liked that little guy.
Dev: That’s, uh, that’s great sir!
Morhaime: He’s so little… like a GNOME! Am I right!?
Dev: Yes sir. Yes you are. Now I assume Charlie will be a “Warlock” in the commercial?
Morhaime: Better. A “Vatican Assassin Warlock.” It’ll be the new Night Elf Mohawk!
Dev: Uh, is Vatican Assassin going to be a Warlock tree or something? I’m not sure I underst-
Morhaime: I’m sure you’ll figure it out. It’s not like we’re doing rocket science here. Now where was I? Oh yeah, coke money for Sheen. How can we use this “Guild” concept to milk some more money out of the player base?
Dev: How much money are we talking about here?
Morhaime: I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but we’re looking at roughly enough to rail lines of coke from whatever planet Charlie’s F-18 is strafing, all the way to Blizzard’s front doors.
For those who are not comfortable with the maths, that’s a lot of coin.
And so we are graced with a quote from Nethaera regarding the upcoming Guild Transfer Service :
We want to give everyone an early heads-up regarding our plan to implement a guild relocation service for World of Warcraft. The idea is for a guild leader to be able to transfer a guild to another realm. The guild structure remains intact, including the guild leader, guild bank, ranks, and guild name (depending on availability).
Guild members who decide to relocate with their guild may initiate their own paid character transfer. Upon a successful transfer they will automatically be part of the guild when they first log into the new realm. Their guild rank and guild reputation will be intact.
Guild leaders who do not want a change of scenery may also choose to pick a new guild name using another new service. These services are in development and we will be providing additional details at a future point in time.
As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the guild relocation service in a way that will not disrupt the game play experience. Please note that this feature will require extensive internal testing, so you may see bits and pieces of the service appear on the public test realms.
Don’t kid yourself. This is going to make serious cash. Entire guilds who are sick of losing to the opposing faction all the time, can now relocate to a more beneficial server without losing their current progression. That’s a big selling point for many guilds looking to swap servers.
Also, since Charlie Sheen may want a Goddess to appear in the commercial with him, prepare to buy your own purple Lionhawk Mount from the Blizzard Store:
This could very well be one expensive WoW summer.
I’ve got a Sparkle Pony, Flying Kitty, and my raiding guild moved servers. What else could a guy ask for?
Rokk Talk 