BaSH PR0MPT

The latest content patch for World of Warcraft is quite an epic patch as far as size and application goes, with a lot of changes. Some classes get a buff or ten, others get massively nerfed. Hunter took a big hit, shame because I miss playing a hunter, Death Knights (which my main character of interest is, simply due to farming abilities) however get mad buffs and the coolest armour I’ve seen in a while. It’s nice to see they’re finally updating armour rather than just repainting old tier sets too! Here’s an excerpt summary of changes from the WoW site itself.

At last. In the Fall of the Lich King content update (3.3), the great doors of Icecrown Citadel will be forced open. The mightiest heroes of the Horde and Alliance will confront and finally defeat Arthas, the Lich King — but the lord of the Scourge will not easily part with his sword, his life, or his frozen kingdom.

This update includes an all-new raid and winged five-player dungeon; numerous interface improvements, including detailed quest tracking and instant cross-realm dungeons; scores of new quests and achievements; the epic tier-10 armor sets, and numerous class and system updates. You can find specific info, patch notes, and extensive details on all of the additions below.

The price of victory in Northrend grows higher with each passing day. Charge the gates, and bring an end to the wrath of the Lich King!

Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls
Looming over the stark wastes of Northrend, the Icecrown Citadel awaits those who would see the Lich King and his Scourge brought low and the threat they pose wiped from the face of Azeroth. The heroes who venture within will face some of the greatest challenges and horrors yet seen. But before you burst in the front door of the Citadel itself, an alternate means of entry awaits you, with an epic journey into the new five-player dungeon, Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls.

Journey with us into our preview of Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls to find out more of what’s in store.
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Tier 10 Armor Sets
As the threats within Icecrown Citadel continue to take shape, so do the rewards for the brave souls who seek to face them. Check out high-resolution images of the tier-10 armor sets that wait to be acquired within the halls of Icecrown Citadel.
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New Quest Feature
We’re making several improvements to the user interface for tracking quest objectives in our 3.3 content update. These new features will serve to improve the questing experience for players through a multitude of new tracking options.
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So within a few minutes of posting about Warcrack a friend SMS’d me asking me to post more on WoW economics. I’ve always had this habit in MMO’s and RPG’s of starting with nothing and ending up filthy rich. What it boils down to is free trade elements within the games, in the case of WoW it’s the auction house. There are two ways to make serious cash, one is supplying goods in demand, the other is market domination of niche products.

Supplying goods is pretty simple, find what people want, make sure it’s a non-reusable resource, and farm it up. That’s how you get your gravy train started. It’ll be effective if it’s something that not many people farm and it has a reasonable demand level, but before long you’ll find other players have noticed this market gap and have stepped in and are out supplying you. There’s two ways around this, one is to organise a player agreement, hire lowbies to farm up what you want and pay them a percentage of the cost. To most newbs 100 gold per week is a wage they’ll happily jump at, even though you can grind that in an hour they can’t. But what if the prices are dropping due to over supply and it’s no longer financially viable?

Market domination is an easy solution, once you have enough gold as a float, simply buy out the people undercutting you and relist their items at a higher value. Keep the market price fixed. This requires a fair bit of micromanagement, however even the most remedial player can login a half dozen times a day to check their auctions and eliminate the competition. Price fixing is the simplest way to gain a monopoly on the element of the game you are supplying, and it’s one of the primary keys to grinding a few grand per day. As I mentioned in my last post I had 800g left over after two days, I didn’t leave the auction house or battlegrounds, and blew a few grand on gems. So to those wondering how I ended up with such a surplus still, that’s how. Market dominance.

So the weekend past was Alterac Valley weekend in World of Warcraft, which means higher honor points are awarded if you play the battleground Alterac Valley.  I decided to jump on Tamp’s account, considering mine was banned a few years ago, and see if I can sort out one of his characters gear.  Please note, I didn’t name her, and once geared I will probably cough up for a race change (HoT racials FTW) and name change, no offence to Mr. T. So, in one weekend I managed to grind up about 80,000 honor and got her Deadly Gladiator’s Dreadplate Shoulders and Deadly Gladiator’s Dreadplate Gauntlets while grinding up enough gold in the meantime to gem the above plus Icebane Girdle. Not bad for two days work, surplus of about 800 gold, up from 0.