luck-of-the-draw
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Behind the Mask: Are grab bags a scam?
Everyone's heard of the "gift box" phenomenon. It's a common theme in F2P MMOs to release an item that doesn't have guaranteed contents and instead has a random selection from a pool of items. Sometimes there are rare bonus items inside; other times there are things the buyer didn't really want. Champions Online has taken its second foray into this territory with the Service and Cursed Grab Bags, a pair of C-Store items that grant a chance at a variety of tradable goodies. Gift box items sell to a variety of people. Some find the idea of chance more fun, and others absolutely must have the rare items and will spend lots of money trying to get them. Are the grab bags a scam, though? After the jump, we'll look at just why that is and hopefully give you enough information to come to your own conclusion.
Luck of the Draw buff broken, getting buffed in patch 4.0.6
Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) has appeared to tell us two important facts about the Luck of the Draw buff, which currently gives everyone in a dungeon finder group with at least one random player a 5% increase to healing, damage, and health. The current Luck of the Draw buff is broken and has not been working in Cataclysm at all, except in a few cases. This will be fixed. The buff is being increased up to a maximum of 15% if you have three or more random players in the group via the dungeon finder. These changes are coming in patch 4.0.6 and will represent a significant buff to heroics. It's not going to allow you to faceroll them, but it's going to be much easier. Ghostcrawler's full statement after the break.
Blood Pact: Leveling up through the Dungeon Finder tool
Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "You want him? ... Oh, go ahead. I was gonna kill him anyway." -- Grand Warlock Nethekurse Over the months, we have looked at the leveling process from a warlock's point of view. Mostly we looked at new talents and abilities, with a few glimpses at key quests. Today, Blood Pact has a look at one of the ways of getting your hands on the XP: the Dungeon Finder. A lot of attention gets paid to using the Dungeon Finder (DF) at 80 to collect and farm emblems. For sure, this is a great way to get your fresh level 80 character some gear that will enable you to raid. But you can use DF right from level 15 (by which time you should have learned how to curse properly and figured out which end of a Shadow Bolt does the damage). It's a powerful tool for covering the rest of the distance to 80. You can even use it to get into RFC and Stocks, which previously tended to be out of bounds for one faction or the other.
Patch 3.3: Luck of the Draw buffs you for pugging
I was on the Patch 3.3 PTR for a few hours last night, and I have to say that I'm really impressed with the Dungeon System, Blizzard's replacement for the old LFG tool. I had a great time with the Random Dungeon feature, using it to chain-run Heroics and get extra gold and badges for doing it. But extra loot and the good feeling of a job well done aren't the only benefits you get for using the Dungeon System. Utilizing the Dungeon System to fill one or more spots in your group will grant you the Luck of the Draw buff, which increases your damage, healing, and base health by 5%. It doesn't matter if the dungeon is random or not, or whether or not your entire group is a PUG -- you still get the buff just for utilizing the system to fill at least one spot instead of spamming the (now) always-open LFG channel. Blizzard's really pushing the Dungeon System, and after playing with it, I can see why -- it rules -- but some Luddites might be harder to convince, and I suppose this buff is Blizzard's way of saying "Sure, but would you do it for ... Mr. Lincoln?" Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
