BoA
Latest
Features that have changed the World of Warcraft
Time to be blunt. World of Warcraft is way better now than it was in vanilla. Before you gasp and get a case of the vapors, let's get real here. I'm me, it's true, you know it's true. The talent system? Leaps and bounds better than the last minute Diablo II clone we got in classic. Raiding? Raids today are more accessible, better designed, and far more varied then the resistapaloozas we got back in the day. I say this as a dude who farmed UBRS for the Draconian Deflector and who tanked Princess Huhuran in cloth freaking booties because they had nature resistance on them. Throughout its near-decade long run, World of Warcraft has constantly changed, iterated and improved on the experience it provides. Every patch, every expansion has made adjustments and tweaks, and while nothing is perfect and not all changes were good (We all know that any change to warriors that didn't make them invincible supergods wasn't a good one, am I right? Why are there so many crickets here?) the game has moved forward with new systems and features. For me, it's interesting to look back over the history of the game at those changes that really improved the player experience or changed it in a fundamental way, that altered how we play. And so, now I'll do exactly that. With Flex Raids on the horizon for patch 5.4, what else can we look back on?
Patch 5.4 PTR: Hellscream's BoA epics
An interesting new wrinkle in patch 5.4 has been discovered, in the form of a whole host of new Bind to Account weapons found in the files for Siege of Orgrimmar. Available in Flexible Raid, normal and heroic levels (although for many of them, only one or two versions have yet been found) these items use the old Horde PvP models, although that may not be final. We know that the items are not finished, their item levels are not finalized at this time. Still, items like Hellscream's Decapitator are interesting for a variety of reasons. Will they behave like current heirlooms and Archaeology BoA's like Zin'rokh, meaning that you could send them to your alts of either faction? BoA items like these could definitely provide an alt with a leg-up on gearing, and making them available only via Flex and Normal/Heroic would definitely get players interested in checking out Flex Raids. At present we have a variety of datamined Hellscream's items - In addition to the Decapitator above, we have the Barrier, Cleaver, Doomblade, Pig Sticker, Razor, Shield Wall, Tome of Destruction, War Staff, Warbow and Warmace. No word yet on whether or not these items will be usable with transmogrification, considering that at present the original PvP items require certain PvP ranks to use them with transmog.
An end to mailing heirlooms?
If you're an altoholic, you've no doubt experienced the joy of schlepping your heirloom items around via the mail system (along with claiming all your pets and mounts for every new character). With Cataclysm and the focus on all the earlier content, many people are still running alts through the old world, soaking up all the different changes. A recent blue post by Zarhym hints at a potential design change to the heirloom system. Zarhym So, after making a trip to the doctor and having some blood stolen, I stopped by Ghostcrawler's office to discuss this and other topics with him. We talked about some of the feedback in this thread, as well as the developers' latest thoughts on BoA and heirloom items. Rather than potentially having my statements in this thread come back to bite me at some point in the future, I'm going to risk being confusing or sounding dumb. :p In short, they agree that the process of mailing heirlooms around constantly is a little annoying. We'd prefer to try and work ourselves away from the method of mailing out BoA items in the future, like pets, mounts, etc. To that end, we have some design goals in mind that would improve this sort of item distribution system. And with those design goals have come some ideas for changing heirloom mechanics. This is sort of contrary to the idea I stated in this thread about just designing the system to allow players to mail their heirlooms all around their accounts without realm restrictions. That's all of the information I can share at the moment, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that the design philosophy I stated earlier isn't so set in stone -- we're reevaluating these types of systems as we look toward the future. I apologize if I've caused any confusion. source This sounds great. Perhaps a BOA/heirloom vendor in each city who will sell you anything you've unlocked for a nominal fee? Time will tell!
Heirloom items bound to Battle.net accounts on patch 4.1 PTR
We just posted about the new heirlooms based on tier 1 armor discovered on the patch 4.1 PTR, but apparently there's even bigger news! Wowhead has discovered that as of 4.1, all heirloom items (including the newly added ones) are labeled as "Binds to Battle.net Account," an entirely different label than "Binds to Account." It's too early to discern exactly what this new distinction means, but at the very least, you should be able to mail heirlooms to characters on your realm that are on a different WoW account but the same Battle.net account. It's not known whether or not you'll finally be allowed to mail heirlooms to different realms, but at least you'll be able to mail some heirlooms to that Recruit-a-Friend mule account you made. Pretty cool! We'll let you know if Blizzard gives any official word on what's happening. WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
RIM, Bank of America partnering up for Mobile Wallet NFC trial
We've known for some time that RIM is going all-in on NFC (isn't everyone?), but we didn't realize they were going retroactive, too. A NFC payment trial coming up involving RIM and Bank of America will allow selected testers to get an NFC-capable back for their Curve 8520 or 8530, Tour 9630, or Bold 9000, 9650, or 9700 -- in other words, most of the company's portrait QWERTY models from the last couple years. You'll also need an active Bank of America account, at which point you'll be able to tap your 'Berry on NFC terminals to get your pay on. The trial starts this spring; no word on when it might be open to everyone. [Thanks, Dylan]
Breakfast Topic: Make it all BoA
Gnomeaggedon happened to post something so interesting the other day that I thought it merited a bit more discussion. He actually posted it almost as an afterthought (I guess he's moving in RL -- good luck with that), but it's quite an idea just the same: "Make it all BoA," he says. Blizzard has added in some more Bind-on-Account items, and most recently made it possible for BoA items to go across factions. But Gnomeaggedon says it's time to stop messing around: mounts, emblems, tier and arena gear, currencies, vanity pets, reputation items, anything that would be useful across toons should be able to be traded freely between them. Why, he asks, should there be limits on which character you decide to play with? And actually, while the possibilities there might make some players' heads spin (imagine how many badges you could earn on your geared-out pally for your newly 80 warlock), I think that Blizzard is probably headed that direction. They may not want to open the floodgates completely, but look at where we've come -- we just heard Frank Pearce say the other day that faction changes are a direct result of Blizzard wanting to give players more choice of who to play with, so wouldn't it follow that we'd eventually get more choice about which characters we use? You have to think that we'll see more and more BoA items, so why not just skip to step ten and open it all up? What do you think?
BoA transfers between factions aimed for patch 3.3
News from the mouth of the floating skull Zarhym tonight:Blizzard is aiming to allow Bind on Account (BoA) items to transfer between factions in patch 3.3. This means your characters on the opposite faction, on the same account, can receive BoA items either through the mail or some other mechanism.Huge news for those leveling alts, and a nice feature for those that have high level characters on both factions with BoA gear. My level 80 Horde hunter will gladly send some BoA items to the last of my Alliance toons waiting to be leveled up.We need to note, and read this very carefully, this change is only hopefully going to make it into patch 3.3. If it's not, do not go cry to Zarhym or Ghostcrawler or your mom that the change didn't make it in -- they are not promising, only letting us know that it's something they'd like to have for us in this upcoming content patch.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.
WoW Rookie: Heirlooms ease the way for alts
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.While most of us want to bite into the big leagues as soon as we ding 80, some players are more interested in trying out another class or the other faction. As soon as they reach the top, they dip back down to the bottom again. Making the road to 80 quicker and easier the second (and each subsequent) time around are heirloom items. First introduced in Patch 3.0.2, heirloom items are "big brother" helper items designed to be purchased by level 80 characters and passed along to younger characters on the same account, realm and faction. Heirlooms were specifically created to help your alts level up. Their stats get better and better as your character levels, and the shoulders and chest armor even provide an XP bonus. Such a deal!
Sony Ericsson eyes fashionistas with Dolce&Gabbana Jalou clamshell
Remember that geometrically-inspired Bao handset we peeked back in July? Turns out Sony Ericsson has another name for it: Jalou. Announced today in both boring and limited edition Dolce&Gabbana versions, the compact-esque clamshell is definitely designed to put "style" first and substance last. Reportedly shorter than "your favorite lipstick," the cellie is actually marketed more as an accessory and less of a phone, boasting a diamond shape design, two-inch display, 3.2 megapixel geotagging camera, video recording, built-in mirror (seriously), an FM tuner, Bluetooth 2.0, multimedia player, step counter, antediluvian web browser and quad-band GSM / tri-band HSPA connectivity. The "normal" version is expected in Q4 in Deep Amethyst, Aquamarine Blue and Onyx Black, while the 24k gold-plated D&G edition will ship in Sparkling Rose along with a matching Bluetooth headset and fanciful packaging. No prices are mentioned for either, naturally.Read - Standard JalouRead - Dolce&Gabbana JalouRead - Hands-on with standard Jalou
The limits and possibilities of Bind to Account
Aeuis brings up an interesting point over on the forums: even though some of the items we get are called "Bind on Account" (or, more properly, Bind to Account, even though most people use BoA as shorthand) they're really not that, because you can't actually send them across factions or realms. Of course, that's pretty obvious to people who've been playing the game for a while -- Blizzard has never really encouraged cross-faction interaction at all (you can "send" items through the neutral AH, though even that is a bit of a hack, not really the intended purpose). So BoA items are actually bound to account, server, and faction.But Wyrxian is surprisingly open about "future possibility:" he does say that while Blizzard could allow us to send items between factions if they wanted us to, they also wanted to leave things open just in case the functionality came into view in the future. That doesn't mean we can expect a change in the next patch, but it does seem to mean that Blizzard is still open to the "possibility." You'd think it be tough technically (character inventories are all over the place, especially cross-server), but considering that we can now have cross-server battlegrounds, all it would probably take is a tweak to the in-game mail system. One character sends an item, another character receives it.And really, the only possibility that might come open is just ease-of-use -- that's why BoA and Heirloom items are in the game already, and if Blizzard determines that it would be easier to have you share items between your characters' factions and servers (perhaps if they upgrade the character re-customization feature to include a faction change?), then it will likely happen sooner or later.
The Queue: Somebody has a case of the Mondays!
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.<Insert witty opening remarks here.> Boltzmann asked..."Has Blizzard ever said anything about the prospect of allowing Bind on Account items to be transferred to different servers? It'd be sweet to be able to level a Death Knight on a friend's server and start out with the good gear."
The Queue: Finding treasure where there's no treasure to be found
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Another day, another Queue. Forgive the awful quality of the screenshot above, I tried to show off Malygos' righteous beard but the guy doesn't sit still, even if you ask him nicely. He's a crabby son of a lich sometimes. Well, let's forget about him and dig into today's questions. As always, if you have a question for The Queue, leave it in the comments section below and we'll get to it in a future edition. Magebleck asked... As a mage, my main weapon is almost always a Staff with some good stats to it. Since Wrath of the Lich King has come out I have read several places that there are now some really well speced staffs that are "Bind to Account", such as the Dignified Headmaster's Charge and the Grand Staff of Jordan. I understand that their stats scale with level, but how does one go about aquiering these new "BtA" items?
