New Tool: Remote Auction House
by Santyn on May.20, 2010, under Tools
As promised, Blizzard has finally rolled out remote access to the Auction House through the Armory. The Mobile Armory update for the iPhone was pushed out Tuesday night, but the Armory itself was still down so I was unable to give it a test. Now that the Armory is back up I though i might go ahead and try it out, but got shut down once more. It seems that my realm (Antonidas) is not included in the beta test.
So setting disappointment aside, I settled for reading the FAQ and other information Blizzard has released. The concept initially looks promising. Access to the Auction House no matter where you are, able to browse, buy, and sell items. But dig a little deeper and you’ll realize that this new feature isn’t all that great after all.
- No Addons – If you are anything like me you have a collection of addons to help you manage the AH. The Remote AH will allow you no such luxuries.
- 200 Transaction Limit – That’s right, 200 total, both buying and posting. Now the FAQ was unclear if splitting stacks would count as multiple transactions but my guess is it will. I don’t know about you, but I’ll post over 200 auctions in one session on one bank alt. This limitation alone knocks out any chance of using it for any serious auctioneering.
- $2.99 a Month – That’s right, to even use the Remote AH you have to pay three bucks a month on top of your current WoW subscription. Three dollars for a slimmed down, severely limited version of the AH. No thank you. (Note: You can browse the AH without paying extra, you just won’t be able to actually perform any transactions.)
When Blizzard announced the Remote AH a few months ago I was actually excited, but now that we know some of the actual details all I can say is that I’m disappointed. While the potential was there for something truly awesome, Blizz simply dropped the ball.
I could live with the limitations. The lack of addons is a no-brainer and the transaction limit makes a slight bit of sense from a technical and/or game-balance perspective. But when they slapped a $2.99/month price tag on it they lost me. It is just one more example of the rampant greed we have seen lately ($25 for a re-skin of a mount already in the game?).
Source: Remote Auction House FAQ
Quit Whining Already
by Santyn on May.04, 2010, under Rants
/rant on
That’s right Mr. “Hard-core, Leet 25-man” Raider STFU. I’m tired of all the whining about the loot changes in Cataclysm. So what if 10-man gets the same loot as 25-man. Get over it. Better gear does not make you a better player. It does not make you special. Nor does it make you “leet”. If you need higher item level gear to be happy with your choice of raid size then maybe it’s time you stepped back and re-evaluate some of your decisions.
The gear change is not going to destroy 25-mans. There are people who choose that mode simply because they enjoy raiding in a group that size regardless of loot. (Hint: I’m not one of them. Good-bye 25-mans.) If you still want to raid in 25s all you have to do is find other players who feel the same way.
/rant off
The End of Raiding as You Know It
by Santyn on Apr.29, 2010, under Opinions
As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, Blizzard dropped a bombshell of an announcement the other day detailing their intention for raid IDs and loot disparity for 10- and 25-man raids in Cataclysm. You can click here to read the blue post, but I’ll summarize the changes here:
- 10- and 25-man modes will share the same lockout. This means that you only get to run one version each week, so pick wisely. No more running both modes every week for extra badges.
- Difficulty will be normalized between the two modes.
- Both modes will drop the exact same gear. (This is the big one, and boy does it have people up in arms.)
- To compensate for a greater number of people and higher logistical requirements, 25-man will drop a greater quantity of loot (items as well as both badges and gold).
- More raids per content patch with fewer bosses each.
- Blizzard will continue to gate content.
- Heroic modes will be on a per boss basis and set up similar to normal modes, with both 10- and 25-man dropping the same loot and being tuned to the same difficulty.
My opinion in a word: FINALLY! If you ask me, this is how Blizz should have done it with Wrath and it is good to see they are learning and making changes for the better. I’ve never made it a secret that I don’t particularly care for 25-man raids. Given the choice, I would rather spend my time in 10-mans.
In a 25-man raid odds are you don’t know everyone there and might even despise a few people, but you deal with to get the machine moving. A machine that seems to always take forever to get going, especially if you have to PuG in players. Vent has to be kept on lock down if you don’t want it to quickly turn into unintelligible chaos. Loot drama is almost a guarantee. Player accountability is terrible.
On the flip side, 10-mans are much more personal and more than likely you know the other nine people fairly well. The runs start rather quickly and you rarely have to PuG in players. Vent is more open making it easier to talk and joke around. Loot drama is non-existent. And when something goes wrong it is vastly easier to pinpoint the problem and fix it.
I’ll admit that even though I don’t care for it, I do run ICC-25 most Sundays. Why? Because of gear. I strive to get the best gear that I possible can, and to do that means I have to run 25-mans. If I don’t then I will eventually fall behind and end up being carried by my guild. 1
Also consider that at some Tier levels a player was required to farm both 10- and 25-man content to even build a full set of gear for that Tier, the most recent example being Tier 9. As a Hunter I was unable to get a T9 trinket out of ToC-10. And the Fury Warriors I know always complained about being stuck using Agility-based swords because no decent 2-handers dropped out of 10-man. With these new changes in place that will never happen again.
So ultimately these changes make my life easier. I can stop running the 25-mans I don’t care for and just focus on the 10-mans without having to worry about gearing. I won’t feel obligated to farm the same raid twice a week to obtain enough badges to keep up. These changes will allow me and many other players to play this game we want to.
- Yes I know I wouldn’t really be carried, but when my name isn’t at or near the top of the DPS chart then I feel like I am being carried. ↩
/reload
by Santyn on Apr.27, 2010, under Site News
Man, it’s been awhile (again). Why? Well, I just haven’t had much to say to be honest. I have had some ideas, but it seems that every one I’ve had gets covered by other bloggers. I’ve made progress in game, but I’m not one to stroke my epeen by announcing every little loot drop I picked up on a blog. I’m not a news source by any means, and a minimal theroycrafter at best.
I think I’ve figured out what I want to do with this blog though. I’ve stated in the past that I no longer raid exclusively on my Hunter. I spend a fair amount of time on my other two 80s, even taking both of them into ICC. So that’s what I’m going to write about: What I do. I’m also going to go ahead and give my thoughts and opinions on recent news regardless of who else has covered it. Ultimately I write for my own enjoyment, so I might as well get back to it.
Tuesday Thoughts
by Santyn on Jan.26, 2010, under Uncategorized
- Not much writing happening lately. Lots of ideas, just not a lot of time to write them. I’ll have to work on that.
- More raiding over the weekend. Picked up a new trinket and some new bracers in ICC-10, then proceeded to wipe repeatedly on Rotface. Ah, the joys of progression.
- Took my Hunter to an ToC-25 PuG last night. At one point I got low on ammo so I crafted up some more arrows in between fights (the epic ones from ICC). Almost immediately I got whispers from every other Hunter in the raid wanting arrows. Only one had his own mats though (i naturally made them for him). The others just expected me to give them away for free. Not likely.
- Though I don’t talk about it much, I have been playing the Auction House pretty heavy for a while now and have built up a rather respectable fortune. After a few weeks in ICC though and I think its time to look into spending it on some gear, namely the 264 boots and possibly leggings. ICC is a lot harder than ToC and any little extra I can bring will definitely help.
- Also from the ToC-25 PuG yesterday, no gear dropped for me but I uploaded the log to World of Logs, and guess who’s sitting pretty at the top spot and had 99.2% survivability for the whole raid? Makes a Hunter to feel good. Real good.
- I’ve been researching on re-itemizing my Shaman and I think I know the direction I’m going to go, but I’m not going to re-gem or anything until after he gets his Tier-10 shoulders and gloves, which should be by Thursday.
- My laptop died over the last week. The combination of hardware already on the verge of failure and a nasty virus it acquired from another PC I was trying to repair (a side business I have to earn a little extra cash). Lesson learned: USB stick sharing is like needle sharing, it spreads diseases. 1 This means I’m left with a laptop that won’t boot from a CD (hardware failure) and BSODs anytime I try to boot to the hard drive (caused by virus). Solution? I was wanting a new laptop anyway…
- This is the first virus I have ever encountered that spread itself to a USB stick and then to another PC. I wish I could tell you the name of it but I ended up having to wipe hard drives completely to remove it. ↩
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