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WoW Archivist: A Glyphmas story
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Professions in Warlords of Draenor feel completely different than at any other era in WoW. Creating powerful items is no longer a matter of farming, luck, or gold. Instead, we have to produce their key ingredients via garrison work orders. Leveling crafting professions is no longer about creating a bunch of useless items that we instantly vendor or disenchant, and reaching max level is now a slow burn instead of a quick grind. This is the first expansion where I haven't hit max level on all my professions within the first week or two. The profession that has changed the most is the most recent: Wrath of the Lich King's inscription, added in 2008. Even the interface changed: the glyph window was originally part of the spellbook UI, not the talent pane. Because of those changes, for a few very special weeks, inscription transformed the financial futures of countless WoW players. I was one of them. We called it Glyphmas, and it was magical.
Pathfinder Online's latest alpha patch is live
After no small amount of hand-wringing, the latest alpha patch is live for Pathfinder Online, with the intent of eventually cracking open the servers for stress testing. It's a pretty important patch even without the aim of a stress test, though, as it expands the map size to its full early access scope and fixes a variety of issues with advancement and the game's overall systems. Even if you didn't get to play recently, the development is humming along. Obviously those who didn't get to play also didn't get to experiment with the game's recent auction house functionality, which is explained in depth on the official site. Setting up an auction requires a starting price and a minimum price. Over the auction's duration, the price slowly decreases from the starting price down to the minimum; if no buyers are found at that discount rate, the auction ends unsuccessfully. Check out the full development blog for more details.
The Undermine Journal returns
Back in July, we reported on the sad news that The Undermine Journal, long a staple resource for WoW's Auction House enthusiasts, was closing down. In their corresponding blog post, they did mention that if they were working on an Undermine Journal 2.0, and hoped to have it up and running eventually. That eventuality became reality earlier this week, when The Undermine Journal reopened it's doors. The new site is still a work in progress--there's no EU support yet, for example--but they plan on having that ready to go by the time patch 6.0 arrives, so never fear. I'm sure that news of The Undermine Journal's rebirth will be happily received by many, and may all of your auctions always be profitable. Welcome back!
Guild Wars 2's trading post is reworked from the ground up
It seems as though you are not really a Guild Wars 2 player until you have had a good rant about the trading post at some point. Those rants might become scarce with this month's patch, as ArenaNet has reworked the game's auction house to be more user friendly. "The first iteration of the trading post didn't do a great job of exposing its offerings to users, and that's something we've worked hard to improve," the team posted in a new features pack dev diary. To facilitate this desire, the team rebuilt the trading post using a new browser engine. The improvments to the trading post include a revamped user interface, faster loading, better browsing and search functions, clearer categories, and a cleaner buy/sell screen. The end result is "an objectively better product" for all users, according to the studio.
ArcheAge begins open beta with 800 MB patch
Why is everyone leaving school and work early today? It's the beginning of ArcheAge's open beta, silly. And coming out ahead of this afternoon's OBT is an 800 megabyte patch full of new features, bug fixes, and preparations for post-launch goodness. The new features with Build 4.7 include a mid-size farm cart, an auto-kick for AFK players, and the auction house. Subscribers get full access to the latter feature, while free players who have never subbed can buy from the auction house but must pay to unlock the ability to post items. There's good news for folks who hoard labor points, as identifying quest rewards no longer requires these. To prep ArcheAge for fast post-launch delivery, the patch also insituted a number of locked features that will be rolled out during later dates. These features include Auroria and Diamond Shores zone functionality, the fishing tournament, arena rankings, submarines, the Red Dragon, and Hasla weapons above tier one.
Neverwinter auctioning off five Sergeant Knox companions
The famous Sergeant Knox, Neverwinter NPC questgiver extraordinaire, will be available as a special companion. For a short time, players can bid on one of these purple-quality companions through the auction house. The catch is that there will only be five such Sergeant Knox companions put up for auction during this event, which means that only five (or fewer) players in the game will own one, at least for the time being. As a gold sink, this will undoubtedly be quite effective to suck some of the excess money out of the economy. This special auction will take place from September 11th through the 14th.
Warlords of Draenor: Warspear and Stormshield
In Warlords of Draenor, the island of Ashran isn't just home to a potential paradise for world PvP -- it's also the location of both Alliance and Horde faction hub cities. City may be too strong of a word, however -- the two areas are more like souped up bases of operation than proper capital cities like Shattrath or Dalaran. Less giant city, more stronghold -- and slightly more spread out than the garishly charming Shrines in Mists of Pandaria -- both Warspear and Stormshield are meant to be not necessarily a home away from home, but a centrally located area for commerce and trade. Each stronghold contains portals to every capital city for your respective faction, as well as profession outposts, an auction house, an inn, and a hub of activity for the nearby PvP action in Ashran. In a way, it's kind of nice that the action is nearby. Shattrath was a fun hub city, but it was nowhere near Halaa. Dalaran was great, but having to hop a portal to get to Wintergrasp was never the most elegant solution for players that wanted to duke it out with other players. Still, one of the major concerns for players is simply the strongholds themselves, and their proximity to areas that some people might not want to partake in. So what are these strongholds really like?
Destiny: No trading with others allowed
One major staple of online gaming won't be present in Destiny when it launches: trading. The developers have made it clear that all of your gear must be attained with blood, sweat, and tears instead of swapped for another player's loot or bought for virtual bucks. "We want you to earn 'em. You should be able to tell a badass story for every sweet jewel in your arsenal," Bungie wrote on its blog last week. "Once you earn them, the various Guardians under your account will be able to trade them, but weapons belong to the players who acquire them through action and bravery." The team reported that it did one final internal playtest of the game this past weekend: "Though Destiny may be basking in the gold light of release, we're already looking ahead to the next milestone, and the next one after that."
You ask the impossible: Finding classic world-drop recipes
I've been running a Challenge Modes 101 series recently to help players who are scrambling to get their transmog sets, mounts, and titles before the axe falls, and our commenter Drewbob pointed something out that I hadn't considered. The use of Invisibility Potions is a key part of the strategy for gold timers, but the recipe is a world drop in classic Azeroth. If you weren't lucky enough to get a drop while leveling, or buy it when it was more commonly available on the auction house, you may find it very difficult to get these days. You can't really farm for it, and on smaller servers, you've got to wonder if it's ever available at all. I bought my Invisibility Potion recipe back during Burning Crusade, and now that Drewbob's mentioned the sheer difficulty of finding it these days, I'm so grateful that I was always too lazy to switch professions.
RIFT addresses player auction house concerns
RIFT brought some major changes to its live servers yesterday, but one change wasn't mentioned in the patch notes and produced more than a little player irritation. Along with all of the other auction house changes, helpfully compiled by RIFTJunkies, the transaction cost was changed from a flat fee to a 5% scaling tax. That's kind of a big change if you're used to only having a minor hit whether the auction sells or not. According to the development team, this change will not be reversed, but modifications will be made to help make the shift feel less punishing to players. The goal is to both recover some money from the economy and cut down on unnecessary auctions for trivial sums. Players can expect to see a hotfix next week to make the taxes both lower and dependent upon the length of the auction; read the full auction house breakdown for more details as well as an in-depth look at the other changes.
The Undermine Journal to close
There is sad news in the WoW community today. The longtime, invaluable auction house resource The Undermine Journal will be closing its doors at the end of July. The Journal cites ballooning server hosting costs as the culprit, and they just can't keep up. Since 2010, The Undermine Journal has been the place to go if you wanted to stay on top of auction house pricing--particularly for comparisons across different servers. The loss of this site is huge blow WoW players as a whole, but particularly for those who make a dedicated hobby out of playing the auction house. There does remain some hope for The Journal's future, however. If they can find a new server host, it's possible that a revamped Undermine Journal will make an appearance in time for Warlords of Draenor. However, in their news announcement, they caution that if the expansion's launch comes and goes without The Undermine Journal's reappearance, it will likely be gone for good. They will do their best to keep a webpage in place in order to deliver updates on the situation. From those of us at WoW Insider, we'd like to thank Erorus, the creator behind The Undermine Journal, for all his hard work and dedication to maintaining such a wonderful resource. We hope The Undermine Journal's absence is just a hiatus, but either way, we'll see you at Realm Pop.
WoW Archivist: Beta surprises
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Last week, we launched into the newest beta in WoW's history -- its sixth! -- for Warlords of Draenor. It's an exciting time for the game. Every beta has its surprises, good and bad. New things that were never announced. Prior announcements that changed unexpectedly. We've already had a number of surprises in the Warlords beta: the faction hub shift to Ashran, cross-faction auctions, and the removal of guild leveling. Beta is just ramping up. We are sure to encounter more than one surprise over the next few months as we test the Draenor experience and gear up for the expansion's launch. Let's take a look back at the previous five betas and examine some of the twists that greeted testers -- and often shocked the WoW community. Caveat: I'm excluding storyline surprises. The original beta In 2003 and early 2004, players didn't really know what to expect from a World of Warcraft MMO. Blizzard, after all, had never made one before. Most of the original beta served up surprise after surprise. Yet, a few stand out. Tired heroes. Patch 0.6 introduced the first incarnation of the rest system. Today it is simply a bonus for players who don't have time to log in every day. The original version was more like the Chinese government's "anti-obsession measures": it punished you for playing too long. The system looked like this: Well rested gave 200% of the XP from a mob kill Rested gave between 100% and 200% XP Normal gave 100% XP Fatigued gave 50% XP Exhausted gave 25% XP Your hero needed a good night's rest -- a full eight hours at an inn -- to go from exhausted to normal.
PSA: Diablo 3 Auction House closes its doors on June 24
The Auction House in Diablo 3 that allowed players to sell items for in-game gold or real-world money will close up shop this week, Blizzard has reminded us. While the option to bid on, buyout or list new auctions was disabled back on March 18, players still have until June 24 to retrieve any items or gold still lingering in the "Completed" tab. In other words, if you sold or bought an item via the Auction House before March 18 but still haven't picked it up or collected your payment, this is your last chance to do so. On June 24, any gold or items left will be sacrificed and banished to the ether. The removal of the Auction House has been a long time coming; it was a controversial addition to the game when it released in 2012, and the game's director admitted that its implementation "really hurt" the overall design of Diablo 3. [Image: Blizzard]
Diablo III is closing the auction house for good next week
Diablo III's auction house is on its last leg, giving up its ghost, and seeing a hellish light at the end of the tunnel. As of June 24th, all traces of the controversial feature will be removed from the game for good. Blizzard sent out a reminder today about the auction house, stating that while its economic functions were disabled in March, the studio left it up for a few months past that to allow players to retrieve items and gold. Any items and gold left unattended will be sucked into the abyss on next Tuesday, so beware!
Elder Scrolls Online gets another third-party auction house
TESO Elite Marketplace isn't the only attempt out there to fill in the hole of a missing Elder Scrolls Online auction house. ZAM announced today the start up of ESO Outpost to meet the needs of buyers and sellers. The service uses "a web-based interface and companion add-on" to buy and sell gold and items. The addon includes a customizable description field, optional screenshots, comments section, tracking, and post-trade feedback.
Leaderboard: Does Elder Scrolls' lack of an auction house bother you?
Yesterday's Massively Speaking took Elder Scrolls Online to task for not having an auction house. Normally I would agree, given my long-standing passion for MMO economies and crafting. So far, though, the lack of an AH hasn't affected my playstyle at all through the first 30 levels. I'm a member of two trading megaguilds as well as my normal guild, and from the inside looking out, there's no difference between selling to thousands of faceless people in your "guilds" or selling to thousands of faceless people via an AH. I can't say whether ZeniMax purposefully designed ESO's economy this way or simply ran out of the time and money necessary to make an AH. But it doesn't really matter, personally, because my pre-launch expectations amounted to "yet another themepark crapfest," so I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how wrong those expectations were -- even without an AH! What about you, ESO players? Does the game's lack of an AH bother you? Vote after the cut! Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!
Elder Scrolls Online recommends third-party auction forum for trading
One of the more interesting omissions from Elder Scrolls Online's feature set is a lack of an in-game auction house, as the team preferred guild stores instead. But that hasn't stopped the fans from filling in the gap and even the developers from pointing players to the workaround. ZeniMax tweeted a recommendation today that fans check out TESO Elite's Marketplace forum as a facilitator of in-game trading: "Looking to buy, sell, and trade in-game goods and services in #ESO? Then @TesoElite's new marketplace is for you." The studio previously explained why it decided to omit an auction house from the MMO: "You don't necessarily want to do a global auction house for a game with one giant server because that generally leads to all the best gear being available at very, very cheap prices. A lot of times that can trivialize the game. You cannot have a healthy economy when there are no restrictions on getting the best stuff in the game."
Dark Shaman pull from anywhere
My Horde guild recently discovered something interesting about the Dark Shaman encounter, as you can see detailed in the video above. This interesting something is the fact that the Dark Shaman will, in fact, teleport to wherever you pull them from--including the roof of the Orgrimmar auction house. This could be a little challenging in a fight where positioning is actually quite important. Oops!
The Think Tank: The importance of auction halls in MMORPGs
Diablo III's gold and RMT auction houses shut down this week. Final Fantasy XI is getting auction house upgrades. Ultima Online launched vendor searching today after 16.5 years of operation. This calls for an auction house-themed Think Tank! I polled the Massively staffers about whether or not MMORPGs should have auction houses, and specifically, whether they enhance or detract from the economic experience of a game. Chime in!
Diablo III shows off expansion gameplay as the auction house closes
Are you ready to continue the adventures of John Diablo as he fights the nefarious forces of Reaper McSoul? Probably not, as that's not even close to the plot of the Diablo III expansion Reaper of Souls. A new gameplay trailer for the expansion has just been released and is available past the break, showing off the new regions, new abilities, and the new class. The expansion launches next week, so you don't have to wait long to try all of this out for yourself. The game's real-money auction house has also finally breathed its last today, with the service currently shut down in the Americas. This goes hand-in-hand with the features of Reaper of Souls that are designed to keep loot drops more relevant and interesting for players. If the trailer is any indication, there are still plenty of demons to be slain -- you just won't be dropping real money to do any of that.
