Alchemy after patch 3.3.3

Well, the first thing you'll notice as a Grand Master Alchemist after patch 3.3.3 is that now that Frozen Orbs can be exchanged for Eternals and most importantly Frost Lotus, is that the Elixir market may take a hit as peoples stockpile of frozen orbs are making Frost Lotus extrememely cheap.

However due to this change, demand for regular high lvl Herbs will go up, and you'll find yourself going from 11g per stack of 20 lichbloom, to being able to get 25g per stack, or maybe more.

We should see a price correction as the market settles down and we'll probably get back to around pre patch prices as the flood of frozen orbs drys up.

The fact that the Mining ability Smelt Titansteel is off cooldown is a big boon for alchemists however, especially if you are able to get large amounts of Saronite Bars cheaply, a mining alt or mining as a secondary may work even better. However check prices on the AH as Saronite Bars have almost doubled in price after this change, as miners realise the demand goes up.

All in all, try to focus on Goldclover, Adder's Tongue, and Icethorn until the crazy Frost Lotus prices get back to normal, and pick some bargains up while the fire is hot!

About the Faction change.

So a short time ago I decided I was bored with Horde side and decided to transfer over to the Alliance side to see what I had been missing. So I went and used the Faction transfer service.

The surprising thing I found about the faction transfer service is after you pay for it and wait a short while, you character is available for transfer at any time just by clicking the button on the character selection screen. So in theory you can pay for a faction transfer and just wait til you want to switch your character over.

Interestingly, after I chose my race my Mage showed up still wearing the Horde equipment as you can see, but they all change to faction specific items once you log on. Also all faction specific quests will be reset, HOWEVER almost all items from the other faction that were linked to that quest will be swapped over.

So oddly enough now I have the 3000 quest achievement, but I have only finished 1600 quests now. And I have the Wintersaber mount in exchange from my ravasaur mount, but I am only neutral with the Wintersaber trainers, weeird.

I've been working on a few other things since I switched over, so I'll be going on about that soon.

Valentines day wheee!

Okay, Valentines day has come and gone. Things are moving a bit slow for me in WoW, partly because I haven't been raiding much, and partly because Mass Effect 2 came out. And I just HAD to import my save game to try out my character.

Mass Effect 2 has a great storyline, and is a great game within itself. But after you finish the game, you don't feel like the side missions are all there, and the dumbing down of the equipment screens makes the game have a bit less replayablity than the first game did.

However Bioware have said from the start they have a lot of DLC planned, which is good because the game is a very strong 'base' to be expanded upon. Especially with side missions and extra characters. A Hover tank is also planned to be coming as well.

In WoW most of my time has been taken up with trying to get the Exalted achievement, so I've been grinding and buying off the Auction House in order to increase my reputation with various factions. Its actually nice to log in to WoW and take it easy. Instead of always raiding.

In other news the local arcade is adding another floor, so hopefully they will have installed a Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike machine, and I can get some games with people just like in the old days hehe.

Super Street Fighter 4

I have to admit I haven't been keeping that close of an eye on news about Super Street Fighter 4, but now that Capcom have brought back Cody, they may have piqued my interest quite a bit!

If you don't know, Cody was originally part of the 3-man roster for a very old side scrolling Arcade Beat-em-Up game called Final Fight back around 1989 i think. Back in 1998 he was featured as a returning character in the classic fighting game Street Fighter Alpha 3, and one of the main characters I used back then.

I just hope they tighten up the controls and make things a bit more intuitive for the next iteration of the Street Fighter franchise!

Going from Super-Rich to broke :(

The other day I finally realised several goals for my character. Obtaining a Tundra Traveller's Mammoth costing 16000 gold. And finally getting the final book to recieve my Kirin Tor Familiar Elemental Pet! Now I feel I can relax and not spend every spare moment grinding for gold! Unfortunately now I'm low on funds, but the dailies should help me with that over time.

In other news, Patch 3.3 will be hitting within the next two weeks I suppose. Which is probably why a lot of raiders have slowed down their raiding quite a bit, to the chagrin of many a Guild Leader. Everyone is just eager to stock up on those emblems of Triumph and get their gear easily methinks.

I've also revised my idea of when Cataclysm is going to drop, based on the news that happened last week in which a Las Vegas convention centre mistakenly pinned Blizzcon at their place in July, which I think probably means Cataclysm will be released sometime in April or May, which will allow Blizz to use the new Icecrown Citadel content coming in Patch 3.3 to be gated to its full extent.

Is the new WoW pet shop just a Gold buying store?

Everyone knows about the new Pet Shop that Blizzard has implemented, where you can buy a Lil' KT or Pandaren Monk. While Total Biscuit has been talking about how this sets the precident within Blizzard to sell completely Virtual goods, and possibly the beginning of a slippery slope, I have a different view of things.

While I agree with him that Virtual goods being sold within Blizzard is new, the WoW Trading Card game and the other MMO's which completely subsist on Virtual Goods, has kind of lessened the shock value of this decision.

However, despite the fact that the Pet Shop is encouraging future games to attempt a Subscription+Microtransaction model, I believe the Shop was also created to curb Gold Farmers.

Gold Farming has been a problem for WoW for years, and there has, and always will be a market for it. Therefore the best way Blizz could combat the problem is by making a Gold Service of their own.

Take my Lil' KT pet above in the screenshot. I never paid real money for him, I traded the Pet Code from another player, in exchange for WoW Gold. Now I know what some will say "It's against the Terms of Service! That's not allowed!" But before you go and report me, take a look at this thread. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820322858&postId=198185696216&sid=1#4

There are others like this one, but basically it's confirming that Pets Bought with money can be traded for gold. The pet is a virtual item, and so is the gold, and is therefore not against the Terms of Service, which prohibits Real world items for Virtual Items and vice versa.

If you still don't believe me, or are doubtful about the stance Blizzard seems to be taking on this ATM, take a look at this in game mail I recieved from the support department after recieving my Lil' KT pet.



Blizzard Customer Service sends me a mail telling me I am breaking the Terms of Service by: "Advertising non-WoW related businesses or Websites."
Obviously the Trade message I sent was misunderstood, I assume they thought that I was offering repeated Gold for Pet and Pet for Gold services, when I just wanted to buy the two pets.

But no mention of an illegal exchange of goods, no mention of breaking the ToS for buying a pet with gold. An oversight? Or a passive confirmation?

Gothic Lolita in a videogame?

While I was looking at the updates on the latest fighting games at Fighters-Generation I found this very interesting character design from recent ARC Systems Fighting game BlazBlue, which appears to me at first glance to be very similar to Gothic Lolita fashion style. It's unlike a typical Maid or Nun design that you would usually see with a young girl Anime character, I wonder if this means that Gothic Lolita is starting to become more widely known? But then again this is a very niche Japanese fighting game series that has not even been released in the West. I do like the character design though!