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Breakfast Topic: If you could play WoW with anyone, who would it be?
I was sitting in my super comfortable chair the other night, staring out my window and taking in the view, when a question suddenly came to mind. I quickly rang my friend, and without taking the time to give a proper greeting, I posed the question: If you could play WoW with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be? "What do you mean?" he asked. "Like, the person would be in your guild. You'd be able to talk with them on Mumble and raid, PvP, or run 5-mans with them. Whatever you want." It was essentially the "if you could have dinner with anyone in human history" question but with a WoW twist. "Hunter S. Thompson," he replied, after taking a moment to think. "Or Morrissey. Poe would be fun to play with, too." "I could see Thompson doing all right, but I dunno about Morrissey." I told him. "He'd probably be terrible at the game. A keyboard turner." "Yeah, he'd probably refuse to heal the raid and just stand there asking what the boss had done that we had to kill it. Probably play a holy priest." We then went on to discuss what tier set Morrissey would transmog his gear to. (We settled on tier 3 because it's unobtainable.) Later, we considered whether George Washington would make a great raid leader. So who would you pick? Be sure to include your reasoning and what class the person would play.
3 things the Black Market Auction House needs to succeed
The Black Market Auction House seems to be a controversial topic. Some players love the idea, while some players utterly detest the idea with every ounce of their being. Regardless, the theory behind the Black Market Auction House is a solid one. Removing gold from the WoW economy is something that is desperately needed in the days of Auction House kings, in order to balance everything out. If the Black Market Auction House works, it'll even out player gold to a reasonable level, keeping items on the regular Auction House at reasonable prices. And for those who spent the tremendous amount of time it takes to amass their fortunes, it means that they finally have something to spend their reward on, something tangible and -- let's face it -- something pretty cool. In expansions past, we've only had one or two really major gold sinks to speak of, whether crafted mounts, or really useful mounts purchased from a vendor. Once those mounts were purchased or crafted, there was a vast sea of nothing for people to spend that gold on. But the potential for abuse runs pretty high with this thing. And as I pondered the potential side effects of the Black Market Auction House, I realized there are certain things that really need to be in place to make it work effectively.
Is the thought of the Black Market Auction House bugging you?
Ever since the Black Market Auction House was mentioned, people wondered what the heck would be in it. We were told it would sell rare items, but what we weren't told was the extent of those rare items. It's not just level 90 recipes and things along those lines; it's also rare mounts and items that have been removed from game. This includes the elusive tier 3 that was lost presumably for all time when Naxxramas was changed from a 40-man raid to a 10- and 25-man raid and moved from the Eastern Plaguelands up to Northrend. As shown in the screenshot above, this also includes the Ashes of Al'ar, a rare mount drop from Kael'thas Sunstrider in Tempest Keep. And that seems to be a hot topic for a lot of players right now, particularly players who already have the mount and obtained it the old-fashioned way. It's an even bigger topic among those who don't necessarily have gigantic piles of gold stashed away, because it's obvious the prices on these items are going to be incredibly high. Some have said that Blizzard is catering to the 1% of players who have stockpiled mass amounts of gold. Well, that's not it at all, really. And the Black Market Auction House is something that we've needed for a very, very long time here.
Mists of Pandaria: Black Market Auction House offers rare and removed items
According to reports by MMO-Champion, the Black Market Auction House is now live on beta realms. Attempts to confirm this by chatting with Madam Goya just kicked back a UI error at me, but there seem to be plenty of people stopping by to check her out. Madam Goya makes her home at the Tavern of the Mists in the Veiled Stair, north of the Valley of the Four Winds. She's not alone, as Wrathion is still quietly hanging out in the tavern as well. So what's available at the Black Market? A little bit of everything, including rare mounts like the Ashes of Al'ar, pictured above. Also included are pets that require a grind to obtain such as the Sen'jin Fetish, previously available only from grinding out Argent Tournament reputation, and high-level crafting recipes, although we don't have a lot of information on what those recipes are exactly. However, perhaps the most interesting note to glean from this is that the Black Market Auction House appears to be carrying the original tier 3 sets that were removed from the game when Naxxramas was moved to Northrend and changed from a 40-man raid to a 10- and 25-man raid in Wrath of the Lich King. Obviously, this means that those looking to transmogrify into these rare tier sets can now pay to do so -- provided they've got the gold to fling around.
EVE Evolved: Fitting the Gallente Talos
Among the hundreds of changes brought by EVE Online's recent Crucible expansion, the new tier 3 battlecruisers certainly rank as player favourites. Rather than giving each race a bigger, tougher battlecruiser, CCP gave the new ships the ability to fit battleship-class weapons but heavily limited their defensive capabilities. All four tier 3 battlecruisers are turret-based, letting them output massive damage with close-range guns or hit for solid damage at battleship sniping distances. As with all new ships, it can be difficult to figure out how to fit the new tier 3 battlecruisers to make full use of their unique combination of high damage output and high mobility. Last week I looked at three viable setups for the Caldari Naga, which proved to be an absolute monster with 1,000-1500 DPS when using close-range blaster setups and a terrifying 650 DPS when sniping at 100km-130km. This week I take a similar look at the Gallente Talos, a ship designed specifically for close-range combat. I explore a traditional armour-tanked blaster fitting with dual webs, a shield-based variant that packs a huge 1,500 DPS punch, and two long-range blaster fits that give the Naga a run for its money. In this week's EVE Evolved, I explore four solid PvP fittings for the Talos, with both shield and armour setups.
EVE Online reveals Amarr tier 3 battlecruiser, the Oracle
Last year graphic designers and EVE Online fans from across the world competed in CCP Games' huge Design-a-Starship contest. The ultimate contest winner was the incredibly impressive Minmatar Tornado, which was meant to be implemented in the game shortly after winning. The ship's implementation was delayed until earlier this month, when CCP announced that the Tornado would be one of four new battlecruisers hitting EVE with the winter expansion. The new tier three battlecruisers are designed to use battleship-sized weapons and are specialised for mid range to long range combat. In a new devblog today, CCP Guard revealed the Amarr tier three battlecruiser: the Oracle. Originally named the Mentor by its creator Alexey M, the Oracle appears to quite literally be a stripped down forward section of the popular Armageddon. The ship joins the Minmatar Tornado and Gallente Talos as yet another entry from last year's design competition to be implemented in the game. The Caldari battlecruiser is still to be revealed, but we got a first glimpse of the ship from yesterday's In Development video devblog and can confirm that it is also a player-submitted design.
Waging WAR: Chaotic zeal, part two
In this week's installment of Waging WAR, Greg returns to the Chaotic Zeal series and peels back another layer or two of the Zealot career in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. He tells us about his experience through tiers 2 and 3 and talks about what makes the zealot stand out in the chaos crowd. If only we could get him to eat his onions with the same fanaticism... At the end of the first issue of the Chaotic Zeal series, I left off by saying that I was happily looking forward to playing through tiers 2 and 3 and the promise the Zealot would bring. I'll kick off this second article in the series by saying that I wasn't disappointed in the least. The Zealot is an absolute pleasure to play as a PvP healer, despite the settings and circumstances I was presented with. The career's growth is robust and meaningful with a variety of attractive tactics and morale abilities, while the playstyle becomes more and more refined over time. I could fill an entire column with anecdotes and memories of my time with the career through the middle tiers, as the Zealot is a career experience that tends to be quite engaging and memorable. Instead, I'll focus on my impressions of leveling through them. Thus, with my Zealot poised on the precipice of tier 4 at level 30, I'll look back and recall the issues I faced getting there. Follow along after the cut as I discuss the middle tiers with the Zealot career.
FigurePrints price reduction, armor sets available
Our friends over at FigurePrints have a few pieces of news to share this weekend: first of all, they've dropped the price in the EU from €129.95 (which was about $166) to €99.95, which lines up with the US price of $129.95. The reason given for the original higher price was exchange rates, but they now say things have settled down enough where they can line up the prices. No word on if EU people who ordered them at the higher price will be getting a refund, so I'd assume they won't.Also, they have now implemented the Tier armor sets we were told about in our interview at BlizzCon -- instead of ordering a FigurePrint with your usual gear on it, you can instead choose to dress your character in Tier 1, 2, or 3, dungeon set 1 or 2, or the original PvP Rare or Epic armor sets. That's designed so that characters don't have to go back and collect all of those pieces -- if you'd rather remember your character in that original armor from the vanilla game, there you go.
WoW Rookie: Hear, hear for tier gear
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.Reader Nick writes in with a question we've been planning to tackle here at WoW Rookie for a while now: "Hey, I'm semi-new to the game, but I don't understand what a 'tier' is. My bro has a level 80 Blood Elf Hunter, and he's always saying 'Oh, he has Tier 5; I got Tier 8.' What does that mean?"The answer to all this math is nothing more complex than the progression of class-specific armor sets. (Oh, and tell your brother he can't possibly have T8 on the live servers yet -- that's going to drop in Ulduar.) Over the course of the game, Blizzard has introduced three-, five- and eight-piece armor sets for each class. These are the so-called "Tier #" or "T#" sets that you hear so much about, all obtained by raiding. Distinguishing between the sets grew confusing as new dungeons, raids and expansions were added, so players began referring to these armor sets in numerical order.
One Shots: T3 in testing
We've heard some exciting things about everything going on with Singularity (the test server) for EVE Online, although until today we haven't seen anything from there as most of it is very much in-progress. That said, today we have this treat for you - another one of the highly anticipated Tier III ships! This image comes to us from one intrepid EVE pilot, Feffrey, who sent this back to us: [This is] from the EVE test server looking at a corp mates Legion, the Amarr T3 Strategic cruiser. It is of course still a work in progress, but it does look frigging sweet. The ship is completely modular and this is just one of the thousands of different combinations possible. It is not fully textured yet so it does look a tad odd.If you're in a beta not under NDA (Darkfall), or involved in checking out new hotness on a test realm, then you should definitely snag some screenshots and send them to us here! We love seeing new things on One Shots, and you'll get to be among the first to ever show off the cool things to come. Just email those images and a quick description of what we're looking at/the game it's from to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name. We'll post them for all our readers to check out and give you the credit!%Gallery-9798%
Massively's WAR Camp: How to get the Stalker set gear
This week on the WAR Camp, we have taken a look at one of the sets of gear that is available to Tier 3 players -- the Stalker's set gear. Just like the Tracker's set in Tier 2 that we looked at a few weeks ago, the Stalker's gear is obtained through a combination of RvR and PvE questing. After killing a whole bunch of players, you'll need to bring a group of friends to take on some Hero mobs. The end result is a set of gear complete with bonuses, Armory unlocks and a title: The Stalker. Kinda cool, right? Click the button below and we'll show you, in gallery guide form, how you can be a Stalker too! The Stalker's Set Guide %Gallery-34148% Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Massively's WAR Camp: Tier 3 Scenario Guides
This week on the WAR Camp, we're hitting the scenarios again, and we're focusing on a couple of the offerings in Tier 3. In Tier 3, knockbacks really start to make a difference, with most classes by this point having received their knockback abilities. This allows for some new strategies in Tier 3 scenarios, and is reportedly the cause of a lot of keyboard-snapping and monitor-tossing, especially in a particular lava-ridden area -- you better believe it's one of the scenarios we checked out! Join us over the page to see the gallery guide from our trip to the molten rocks of Tor Anroc, and after that, we visit Talabec Dam for some bombing-run fun. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Tiers: The past, present, and future of dungeon and raid sets
Tier gear is a concept that has been with WoW since the beginning. In Molten Core, the very first WoW raid, each class had a set of gear that looked good together, could only be equipped by that class and that was, supposedly, specially tuned to that class's stat requirements. Priests had Prophecy, Warriors had Might, and so forth. This was called tier 1. Classic WoW had three official raid tiers: tier 1 came from Molten Core, tier 2 from (mostly) Blackwing Lair, and tier 3 from Naxxramas. T3 is notable for a few reasons: It was obtained via multi-class tokens. The bosses would drop, say, the belt token for Priest, Mage, and Warlock. You'd then have to take the token, some mats dropped by Naxx trash, and some crafting mats to an NPC to get the gear. This was useful because the boss drops became more flexible: if your priests all had their belt already, you could give the token to a mage or a warlock; if it had just been a straight drop of the priest T3 belt, you'd have to disenchant it. T1 and T2 filled eight slots, while T3 filled nine, adding a ring. However, the highest bonus was for eight pieces, so you could choose which piece you wanted to leave out and still get the set bonus. This is continued in BC with five-piece sets, but only two- and four-piece bonuses. When Wrath of the Lich King goes live (or possibly when patch 3.0.2 does) you will no longer be able to acquire T3. Naxxramas is being moved from its current location up to Northrend, where it will become the entry-level raid for level 80. Those who already have T3 will get to keep it.
WoW Rookie: Pre-Burning Crusade endgame reputations
WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know. For the last couple of week's we've been discussing reputations here on WoW Rookie. By leveling up reputation with factions you will open yourself up to special content, rewards, and discounts. Last week we examined some of the factions encountered while leveling from 1 to 60 in Azeroth. Some people still rep up with these factions, but for the most part these NPCs have been pretty lonely since the expansion. When the level cap was at 60, prior to the Burning Crusade, players spent a most of their time at level 60 repping up with PvP and raid factions. Many players gain reputation with these factions for the right to purchase crafting patterns from their vendors.
Bornakk hints that Tier 3 might be removed from the game
With solid confirmation that Naxx will be "floating" off to Northrend (and not exist in two places at once) also comes a strong hint by Bornakk that they will be removing the ability to get Tier-3 armor pieces along with the rest of the current Naxx loot. Bornakk says that "For players who want the look and the stats of tier 3 armor at level 80, hopefully they are already farming the dungeon for them." This is a very strong indication that post WotLK, the current Tier 3 gear will be no longer available.Before today it has been pure speculation that this removal of loot would or would not happen. The only time that the WoW Insider staff can think of this happening before (save for the holiday and special events) is with a few old mount models getting changed. And that is nothing compared to entire loot tables being removed from the game. Note that the changes in patch 2.3 to old world loot were just that – changes, not removal.In many ways this removal does make since, given that the armor models will be reused in Wrath of the Lich King's version of Naxx. While there is similar looking and colored gear floating around WoW, none of it is really twenty levels apart and powerful each in their own right.However with that said, the removal of items from the game like this stirs a mixed reaction in me.
TTH resource-gathering guide: Lone-Lands
Compared to the last zone we examined in the TTH Lord of the Rings Online resource gathering series, for the bountiful Bree-Land, the Lone-Lands really fail to impress. In general, it's simply not a great place to do your harvesting. However, there are a few redeeming qualities that may cause you to visit the zone. For example, the Lone-Lands guide asserts that there is no better area in the game to get your medium hides than the back areas of Midgewater Pass. Also, the tier 3 resources here are widespread, and the zone is one of the main sources of these materials for lower level characters who can't go much further, but aren't having luck harvesting for them in earlier areas. To gleam what value you can out of this often frustrating area, check out the rest of the guide for the usual table and detailed look at individual portions of the zone.
TTH resource gathering guide: Bree-Land
In this next installment of TenTonHammer's Lord of the Rings Online resource collecting guides, the focus shifts to Bree-Land, which contains tier 1, 2 and even tier 3 materials. The guide informs us that Bree-Land is a veritable gold mine (so to speak) when it comes to finding tier 1 and 2 resources, but although it does contain some tier 3 nodes, it is best to think of these as a nice bonus rather than to visit the zone particularly to find them. There are once again some notes explaining different areas in-depth, but here are the real pro tips: for tier 2 resources, head to the Eastern Bree-Fields, and for tier 1, the Midgewater Marshes have what you need. Of course, on most resource runs you'll need to hit more than just a single area, especially when you're not the only one out there collecting, so check out the Bree-Land guide for another handy table and the rest of the hints for harvesting there.
Tier 3 Armor Preview
Blizzard has released official information about the new tier 3 armor sets, which we'll find in the Naxxramas dungeon to be released in patch 1.11. I have to say I'm pleased with the graphical look they're going with - unlike tier 2, I wouldn't feel embarrassed to be seen in any of these sets. So check them out and report back - what do you think of the new sets, their stats, and their look?
Some Info on the Tier 3 Sets
IGN went out and collected a multitude of screenshots focused on these new armor sets. As we know from this morning's New York Times article, the sets will be 9 pieces (all of the usual armor slots as well as one ring). The pictures are somewhat blurry, but the print is legible and the visual concept of the sets are obvious. The armor show seems to follow the recent trend (with Dungeon 2 sets) of more subdued armor coloration (no bright purples here), which I'm perfectly content with. Update: Of course as soon as I posted that, I found some additional information (better organized, if nothing else) here.
Breakfast Topic: What do you want from E3?
Another year and another E3 is upon us. Of course E3 is a source for gaming news across the spectrum, but Blizzard and World of Warcraft will certainly have a presence. We've already been told to expect more information on upcoming raid dungeon Naxxramas and the new tier 3 armor set contained within, but I've no doubt that Blizzard is keeping some surprises up its sleeves. More news on the Burning Crusade expansion? New Alliance race information, perhaps? Hero classes? What do you hope for from Blizzard at E3 this year? Tell us about it!
