battle-net-store
Latest
Iron Skyreaver now available on Battle.net store
The Iron Skyreaver mount that was released last week was available in the in-game store only. Unfortunately, this meant meant that players looking to give the mount as a gift to friends were unable to do so. Good news for those with giving spirits -- the mount has now been added to the Battle.net store, which means you can indulge your close friends with the latest ridiculously cool mount for their collections. Purchasing mounts through the Battle.net store will give you an option to either use the mount on your own account, or give the gift to a friend. Selecting the gift option will generate a code, which you can then toss at the recipient to use at their leisure. All they have to do is log into their Battle.net account and redeem the code by going to the Games & Codes dropdown and selecting Code Redemption. While it's nice to see the Skyreaver added to the Battle.net shop, it does make one wonder if the in-game store will see gift-giving functionality eventually added. With how easy it is to use the shop interface, it would be nice if it generated codes as well. Hopefully we'll see that at some point in the future.
New Mount and Make-A-Wish pet now available
The Fey Dragon was datamined a while back, and now this new mount is available on the Battle.net store. This incredibly pretty mount is bundled in with the Alterac Brew Pup, and as you'd expect, they both apply to all current and future characters on a battle.net account. The Fey Dragon is a flying mount, but it has no skill requirement apart from riding -- if you can't fly, it'll walk, but it also scales up to your fastest flying speed, so if you're flush enough in-game to get 310%, then the Dragon will do that too. What's more, in a first for WoW mounts, it's color-changing! Gone is the need to get it in every color -- your first and only Fey Dragon will be every Fey Dragon you could want. As WoW Insider reported yesterday, the Alterac Brew Pup, as part of a long line of rescue dogs doing great deeds, is having part of its proceeds -- 50% of the $10 cost -- donated to the Make-a-Wish foundation. As Wowhead mentioned, it's a battle pet, and you can find out more details in their Battle Pet database. The donation will be made to Make-a-Wish whether you buy the pet by itself or the pet and mount bundle.
Battle.net store gets a massive makeover
Way back in December 2012, a change was made so that you couldn't get any physical items from the Battle.net store in Europe. We even spoke about it in a couple of articles here on WoW Insider, with EU Community Manager Takralus informing the community that, thanks to an extensive revamp taking place on the battle.net store, the EU version was out of commission for anything but downloadable items. And now that revamp seems to have arrived. The image above is a screengrab of what you'll see if you head over to us.battle.net/shop, or follow any other links to the shop that you might come across. Alas, for the time being at least, it seems like physical items are absent from the US store as well as the EU one, but there are some other interesting changes.
That store button is back, and it wants you to touch it
Guess who's back, back again on the patch 5.4 PTR... yes, it's that sneaky Store button. And yes, yes I did click it. I must have clicked it a hundred times, just in case this one was the time that it would work. I will log back in in a moment just to try again. Just in case. It still didn't work. This was the very best I got it to generate for me, and that was only on a fresh reload of my UI. The button itself, as much as you can discuss the quality of a button, isn't too obnoxious. Let's be realistic, Blizzard was never going to have a singing dancing button with big flashing arrows pointing at it, constantly in the player's face. But this little, subtle thing in the micro-menu is just fine. While we wait for more information, and for the store itself to appear on the PTR, rather than just that teasing button and this rather trolly UI error, WoW Insider has the things to keep you all Store-y. The WoW Insider Round Table waxed lyrical on how they'd happily pay for just about anything, the Community Blog Topic discussed what should and shouldn't be available, and we wondered whether Battle Coins could be a new in-game currency for the store. Is any of it serving to soothe your worries about the store?
Could Battle Coins be an earnable currency for the in-game store?
Over at MMO-Champion recently, some new strings were discovered in the client that have begun to cause some discussion. They point to something called Battle Coins being used on the in-game store in China and Korea at least, as part of the in-game store. These are alongside what's called a "Test Currency", which indicates that they might not be the only payment method available. Now, as we say a lot round here at WoW Insider, this is datamining, and should be taken as such. Don't consider it fact, consider it a possibility. The notion of a second game-specific currency being part of the store opens up an interesting option: could this currency be obtained in-game somehow? Of course, it would likely be bought with real money and then spent, just like Riot Points. But, if it were the case that it could be earned in-game, what method would Blizzard use? Maybe it'd work like the Riot RP versus IP system, where you can use real-world currency or in-game earned currency to purchase things from the in-game store. Maybe you could use gold to buy battle coins, on the BMAH or in another in-game avenue. It seems less likely that there would be a way to grind them out, like farming Lesser Charms, or similar, but you never know. If this is the case, and to be abundantly clear we don't know for sure that it is, would this change your opinion of the in-game store? Would you feel happier knowing you could convert gold into Battle Coins to spend? Or would you only be happy if it was another more grindable currency, such as JP or Lesser Charms?
Battle.net authenticator now available for other platforms
The Battle.net mobile authenticator is now available for a wide variety of mobile platforms in several different countries through the Battle.net mobile store. Originally available only for the iPhone through the App Store, the mobile authenticator can now be used on virtually any phone that can run third-party applications. There's only one catch - unlike the original mobile authenticator found in the App Store, these new versions aren't free. The prices vary depending on your country due to PayPal conversion rates, but they amount to roughly $1 (it's €0.50 in parts of Europe).Despite the need to purchase it, we at WoW.com can't recommend it highly enough. Account security is an important thing, particularly with the rampant account hacking and phishing going on these days. Now that it's available to use in a wide variety of platforms, there's little reason not use the Battle.net mobile authenticator. A dollar is a very small price to pay for that additional layer of security.Editor's Note: Apparently now the download is showing as "Coming soon" for US/EU carriers. It was showing as up before, but now is not. We blame the Gnomes. Or Ghostcrawler.Thanks to Medros from All Things Azeroth for the tip!
