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Gold Capped: The effect of mega-blogs on your business
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house, and Insider Trader, which is all about professions. For Gold Capped's inside line on making money in game, check in here every Thursday, and email Basil (new address is basil@wowinsider.com; old one no longer works) with your comments, questions or hate mail! I've been called a lot of things by a lot of people. The reality is that every time I write about a specific business or tip for making gold, hundreds of people will end up trying it out, and if I write something about one of your favorite (or most profitable) businesses, you may find some of these people competing with you. The number of people participating in any specific market is going to fluctuate over time naturally, but as I've said before, the people who have the most success are the ones who hang in for the long run. That said, these people tend to have a strange relationship with each other. They're competitors and will undercut vigorously, but they tend to spend less effort on their tenacious competition than one would expect.
Addon Spotlight: CursorCastbar
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, make your castbar round?! Whaaaaat? Addon Spotlight fans, rejoice! The first installment of your favorite column for 2011 is here, and we're going to start off with a good one. Take a seat, grab a hot cup of tea, and settle in for some addon goodness. In the middle of writing Addon Spotlight for this week (which will become next week's), a friend of mine shot a link across the interwebs to me via instant message. "Here's an addon I think you would like," he said. Well, "like" is an understatement. I love CursorCastbar not only for the functionality that it brings but the aesthetics of a radial castbar. This is exciting.
Improvements on the way for EVE Online's contract system
There are many professions open to players in EVE Online, but it's the trading that often draws players to the game. Due to the number of players buying and selling on EVE's single server and the fact that items are destroyed on death, a savvy player can find countless opportunities for profit. To avoid overloading the market window with thousands of items most players will never need to buy, CCP limits rare and unusual items to being sold on the contract system. Items can be listed as auctions or direct sales, and players can search for items by name. The system has been working amicably for years, but recently several back-end performance issues were identified in it. As part of CCP's on-going war on lag, major back-end optimisations were made. Due to this restructuring of how contracts are handled on the EVE server, several new features have suddenly become possible. In a new devblog, CCP Atlas explains the back-end improvements and what they mean for the average player. Several features players have asked for over the years are on the way, such as the ability to put damaged items into contracts. Ammo in the guns of a ship being contracted will now be moved into the ship's cargo hold rather than the item hangar, and ship insurance will no longer be voided when a ship is contracted. A whole host of improvements are also on the way to make the terms of courier missions more obvious. Players will be informed of the dangers of a contract before they accept it, including dangerous systems en-route and whether the destination station might refuse them docking rights. The upgrades are already live on the EVE test server and will be hitting the live server as part of the Incursion expansion's third phase in January.
Flameseeker Chronicles: A look back at 2010
Welcome to the last Flameseeker Chronicles of 2010, in which I wax sentimental over this year and salivate over what the next one promises. It's been a huge year for both Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 -- probably one of the biggest since Guild Wars 1 launched. There was civil war in Tyria, with consequences more far-reaching than any of us as players could imagine at the outset. Profession reveals came fast and furious for a while, and when the dust settled, we had extensive information on half of the Guild Wars 2 professions. Gamescom and PAX brought us actual Guild Wars 2 gameplay, the War in Kryta seemed to go on and on, and there were even some shakeups behind the scenes, with ArenaNet swinging a banhammer of massive proportions and dismantling the Xunlai tournament house. Follow along and let's take a look at what 2010 brought to Tyria.
Gold Capped: The downside of hoarding
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house, and Insider Trader, which is all about professions. For Gold Capped's inside line on making money in-game, check in here every Thursday, and email Basil with your comments, questions or hate mail! In the beginning of an expansion, a lot of people tend to hoard goods for later. A herbalist friend of mine gathered his heart out for the first two days of Cataclysm and managed to produce something like 50 stacks of herbs. His plan for it was to use some of it on maxing out alchemy and then hold onto the rest so he could level inscription at some future point. We started talking, and it became apparent that he was aware that the price of herbs was high and would likely be much lower in a couple of weeks. This is not unique. Most people who end up with enough gatherable materials that they have to decide what to do with apparently default to hoarding it for future use instead of using it immediately or selling it -- even if they know that the value of their mats will be lower by the time they use it.
Live Stream: Archaeology 101
Hello, class, and welcome to Archaeology 101. Today, we'll show you how to get started in this profession, as well as where to go, what to do and how to do it. I know I'm not as dreamy as Indiana Jones, so I won't be expecting apples on my desk or eyelid tattoos. But I'll also not be interrupting class to run after Nazis, so I've got that going for me ... which is nice. I will be taking questions and comments from the chat room, however, which is after the break. Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay by clicking the image above.
Second part of EVE Christmas present revealed -- the Echelon
Two weeks ago, we learned of CCP's plans to remove learning skills from EVE Online. Learning skills have always been a problem for new players, and their removal has been an issue supported by players for years. As the first part of a two-part Christmas present to players, CCP announced that the skills would be removed with the Incursion expansion's December release. Speculation on what the second part of that present could be has run wild on the forums, with many older players even wishing lost features would make a come-back. CCP has just announced that the second part of EVE's Christmas patch will be a new ship called the Echelon. As with previous presents, Every subscribed player will have one of these ships delivered to them through the item-redeeming system. The Echelon is a unique CONCORD design aimed at fighting the oncoming Sansha menace. The ship boasts impressive hacking capabilities, with a bonus to the operation of specialised Sansha codebreakers. A limited-edition Sansha codebreaker will also be included with the ship. Until now, hacking has been restricted solely to a mini-profession for the gathering of invention materials and completion of static COSMOS missions. This announcement is the first hint we've seen that the Sansha incursions we're looking forward to in January will include an element of hacking.
Spotlight on the Forsaken World occupation system
Forsaken World, the upcoming free-to-play title from Perfect World Entertainment, has been seeing a pretty big publicity push of late. The most recent official spotlight puts the focus on the game's occupation system, which is somewhat akin to a crafting system while at the same time being quite a bit broader. Yes, the system includes the option for players to craft their own equipment as well as contains side professions such as alchemy -- but it also includes more unusual options, such as becoming a socialite to unlock hidden quests or predicting the future with astrology. According to the spotlight, some occupations are obtained automatically via leveling. Others must be unlocked by spending Job Points, which are earned as players progress along the game's main storyline. While characters have a wide variety of different potential specialties, there's no way to take part in every single occupation, thus forcing players to pick and choose what would work best for each character. If you're looking forward to Forsaken World, take a closer look at the preview, which promises to add another level of variety onto the gameplay.
Countdown to Cataclysm: Profession updates and changes
This article is part of our Countdown to Cataclysm series -- preparing you for Cataclysm launch one day at a time. Cataclysm is going to change the world of professions -- so without any further ado, here are the most important changes. General The skill cap for all professions is now 525. There is a lot of content locked behind a phased area you can not unlock until you're level 84. The new elemental trade goods are called Volatiles. Herbing and mining now provide experience. Archeology will be trainable. Guilds can see links for all members' available professions.
Gold Capped: Juggling the Volatiles market in Cataclysm
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house, and Insider Trader, which is all about professions. For Gold Capped's inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in here every Thursday, and email Basil with your comments, questions or hate mail! This week's gold blogosphere post is BigJimm's post about profiting off the world events. The new elemental crafting materials are called Volatiles. Volatile Earth, Volatile Air, Volatile Water, Volatile Life, and Volatile Fire are going to be by-products of herbalism, mining, and killing certain mobs. While they're technically farmable (unlike ore, skins, and herbs), the only way to farm Volatiles is to camp things that drop them or to collect them as by-products of mining or herbalism. Let's look at the sources for each type of Volatile. Bear in mind that this is just beta information and thus is completely subject to change (as well as probably a little unreliable because of the small sample numbers). Elementium Vein will contain Water, Earth, Fire, and Air Volatiles. Pyrite Deposits will contain Fire and Air Volatiles. Obsidium Deposits will contain Air and Earth Volatiles. Herb nodes will all drop Volatile Life. There are a variety of elemental mobs that drop all the Volatiles, the most farmable of which are in Twilight Highlands.
Insider Trader: No more low-level crafting alts
Insider Trader is a column about professions by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, who also writes Gold Capped about how to make money using the auction house. Email Basil your questions. It's been pointed out before that I happen to use the very laziest of profession and auction alts: a level 65 death knight. Death knights start at 55 and can be facerolled to 65 with the least investment of time of any class. In my reply to that comment on the original post, you'll see my method: I never level anything except the character I plan on playing in the endgame. I'm a busy man, and among all the activities that can be done in World of Warcraft, I prioritize leveling just under patching my client and just above reputation grinding. Well, it's a good thing that my poor, facerolling DK has been grinding the dungeons for the last week, because one of the trade skills I've maxed on him is undergoing a pretty serious change: All enchanting recipes that require a skill of over 510 are apparently not available from the normal trainers in major cities. That's not the end of it, either -- blacksmithing, leatherworking, and jewelcrafting are all capped out at 500 skill at the city trainers. Special thanks to my Hunting Party Podcast co-host Darkbrew for confirming these values for me in the beta, and thanks to Kaliope for writing a post that pointed me in the right direction.
The Queue: Legendary heavy glow
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I saw Gorillaz last night at Madison Square Garden. 'Nuff said. Masalar asked: Do the profession changes, such as multiple skill ups for making a blue item, come into play with 4.0.1? Because my hunter is waiting for that change to become an engineer ... Yes, those count as system changes, so they should be in with 4.0.1.
Gold Capped: Making money in the time remaining before Cataclysm
Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail! I got an email recently asking about something that's been on my mind lately: What ways of making gold are there when Cataclysm is just around the corner? Graham writes: I just recently had my first successful foray into the world of being an auctioneer. I am [now] sitting very happily with 28k gold earned [through selling crafted epics]. My goal is to purchase a Bane of the Fallen King title and ICC-10 full meta clear, which on Mal'ganis Horde sell for 50k and 75k respectively. At the time I am writing this, I have sold all of my inventory of epics and all of the materials that I was stockpiling to make more because my perception is the market has almost completely evaporated with the rumored release date of Nov. 2 for Cataclysm. What other methods of accumulating a sizeable sum of gold over the next six weeks are available that should continue to be profitable clear up until the expansion hits? I have access to max-level enchanting, blacksmithing, mining, alchemy and jewelcrafting. If the glyph market is your preferred answer, I could level a scribe. Unfortunately, my observation is that all crafted items (raid consumables, 264 epics, etc.) are selling at or below their material cost to create. I have looked into the Saronite shuffle and its various methods of earning income, and as near as I can determine, it's a zero-sum market as well (cost of ore = expected sale of any of the options).
Newly "smuggled" information from Star Wars: The Old Republic
Just when we think there isn't anything more that can be revealed about the smuggler class, BioWare proves us wrong. The Old Republic website just launched a slew of screenshots, advanced class data, and videos about Han Solo's favorite Republic class. Let's see if we can break this down into bite-sized pieces. First, we know the smuggler's duck-and-cover combat techniques are not new, but we now have an official breakdown of the advanced classes. The scoundrel advanced class is all about sneaking in, hitting hard, then getting out before anyone notices. The stealth belt, med pack, and single blaster are his equipment of choice. The gunslinger advanced class controls the enemies' movement as well as packing a nice DPS punch. All the gunslinger needs is two blasters and perfect aim -- if you bust an enemy's knees or blindshot him, he ain't gonna move. Secondly, we have one of the smuggler's companions: Bowdaar. This Wookiee is most likely picked up on the Smuggler's Moon, Nar Shaddaa, since he is a gladiator in the arenas there. Although he uses few -- if any -- weapons, this strong-armed companion has never been defeated in battle. This sets him up well to be the tank to the smuggler's healer or crowd control role. Plus, what's a smuggler without a Wookiee partner, right? Lastly, what would a smuggler be without a starship? The Corellian XS Stock Light Freighter serves at the smuggler's transportation of choice. As with most Corellian-designed vessels, the XS Stock Light is perfect for cargo transportation, crew accommodation, and pirate defense. Everything your smuggler will need to find consistent work throughout the galaxy, plus a few added features to hide not-so-legal items. Check out more information about this sneaky class on the official site, and don't forget to visit our gallery for some awesome screenshots. %Gallery-103218%
Cataclysm Beta: Updates to archaeology and inscription
It's not on the beta servers yet -- which means the facts are still sketchy -- but there's information from a new beta (build 12857) up on MMO-Champion that includes a number of new items for archaeology and inscription. Archaeology item descriptions offer intriguing hints of things that may be, without any solid details on the items. Some examples: Bone Gaming Dice Dwarves love gold and dwarves love drinking, so gaming seemed like a natural fit for both. These dice appear to have been carved from sheep bones. What might be dried blood is still visible on the 5 pip. Cloak Clasp with Antlers This clasp is fashioned of lacquered wood carved to resemble stag antlers. On the reverse is engraved the name "Pyramond" in Darnassian. Fossilized Hatchling When you finished assembling this tiny skeleton through some eldritch magic, the little critter sprang back to life. He's a pretty good pet. Since he's a skeleton he doesn't eat much. Wooden Whistle A small whistle carved from oak. It might have been used to summon a pet or mount or possibly used as a child's toy. It appears to have been chewed on by an animal or young dwarf. While there are just as many nondescript inscription items listed, some have more detail: Cataclysm Reclamation: Blacksmithing Allows you to rewrite blacksmithing plans from once-lost recipe fragments. Cataclysm Reclamation: Enchanting Allows you to rewrite blacksmithing plans from once-lost recipe fragments. Cataclysm Reclamation: Jewelcrafting Allows you to rewrite jewelcrafting plans from once-lost recipe fragments. Cataclysm Reclamation: Leatherworking Allows you to rewrite leatherworking plans from once-lost recipe fragments. Cataclysm Reclamation: Tailoring Allows you to rewrite tailoring plans from once-lost recipe fragments. Felfire Inscription Permanently adds 130 Intellect and 25 haste rating to shoulder armor.Can only be applied to your own armor, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Inscription of the Earth Prince Permanently adds 195 Stamina and 25 dodge rating to shoulder armor.Can only be applied to your own armor, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Lionsmane Inscription Permanently adds 130 Strength and 25 critical strike rating to shoulder armor.Can only be applied to your own armor, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Swiftsteel Inscription Permanently adds 130 Agility and 25 mastery rating to shoulder armor.Can only be applied to your own armor, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Check out the full list of updated profession items at MMO-Champion.
EVE Evolved: The Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase
The EVE Evolved column has been home to dozens of in-depth guides on various aspects of EVE Online. Over the past two years, I've written multi-part guides to many industrial and PvP-oriented topics. On the topic of research and development, we've covered tech 1 research, invention, reverse engineering and five top tips for researchers. Perhaps more useful was the three part series on trading, which first covered the basics before delving into advanced trading strategies and a few useful tips. Other guides which have proven popular among newer players included our three-part guide to mission-running, and the recent three-page guide to exploration. Members of the EVE community regularly produce new guides and tools to help players make the most of their time in New Eden. This week, EVE player Laci surprised the EVE community with the release of an impressive new guide aimed at new players and industralists. The comprehensive 416-page Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase (or ISK for short) covers practically everything a new player could want to know about the game. Until now, the guide had been available only in Hungarian. After intensive translation and design work, the full guide has been released in English. In this week's EVE Evolved, I take a look at this impressive guide and ask its creator Laci a few questions about it.
Gold Capped: Ask an auctioneer -- time is money
This week's Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) is brought to you by the letter "s." Shortly followed by the letters "t," "e," "a" and "k." I'm in Texas on day job business, and nobody -- I'll tell you what, nobody -- does steak as well as Texas. The barbeque here is also pretty darn good. Mmm, meat. Oh yeah, and it's like a bajillion degrees out all the time. It's so hot that the wind doesn't cool you down; it makes you hotter! Want to make money on the auction house? For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail! I swear on everything that's good and just in the world that I will eventually dig myself out from under these emails. If you ever stop sending them, that is. So if I don't get back to you in a few weeks or so, try emailing me on my podcast email and see if you have better luck there. Luca asks: Thanks to a misapplication of the snatch tool, I recently found myself the unhappy owner of a ridiculously large stock of bronze bars, purchased at around 100 percent of their regular value (which seems only ever to go down since). I'd like to try to recover my profits as best I can, having learned my lesson -- any ideas? Should I simply wait it out and leak them back into the economy slowly or try something more daring?
Hyperspace Beacon: Forced species
The Hyperspace Beacon is a weekly guide and discussion by Larry Everett about the yet-to-be-released game Star Wars: The Old Republic. This week I was excited about the new species introduced to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the lore-lover in me is still extremely elated despite what some of the commenters said on the announcement article. However, I've had time to think about a few things, and the seed of internal conflict sowed itself in my fanboy psyche. It did not break me, but I do question some of the decisions BioWare has made regarding species-to-class choices. I do not like to draw attention to negative posts because I believe arguments can be made without berating other people and defiling the English language. But one of the posts in the recent space-combat-on-rails article reflected some of the fans' sentiment towards the game when the poster said this about BioWare's developers: "They have their formula and every new game is just fresh paint." Although I don't think it is exactly that simple, there is a bit of truth in that statement. But that does not, by any means, destine this game for failure (right, Final Fantasy?). BioWare does have a formula, but when it sticks to this formula, it usually produces something very successful. BioWare's mantra is "story." The company has chanted this from the first day SWTOR was announced, yet for me something still seems a bit amiss. Upon examining past BioWare games, I am not quite sure the reasons for tying species to a specific class actually make sense -- at least not for the reasons the company offers. Perhaps when you follow me through the rest of this article you can help me resolve this inner conflict.
EVE Evolved: Outlaws of EVE
EVE Online's Community Manager CCP Wrangler once said that "EVE isn't designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world; it's designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world." That sentiment sums up the core philosophy behind the game, which permits such nefarious gameplay styles as thief, smuggler, scam-artist, pirate and market manipulator. Underhanded deals go on every day in EVE, with bounty hunters hired to ruin someone's day and spies tearing corporations apart from within. Many are drawn to EVE because it's one of the few MMOs that allows players to embrace their darker side. The opportunity to be a real villain in a sandbox universe can be intoxicating. Perhaps more intoxicating is the notion that the presence of tangible villains affords players a rare opportunity to play the role of hero. For every pirate gang lurking at a stargate in low security space, there's an anti-pirate squad somewhere planning an attack. For every thief ready to empty their corporation's hangers, there's a security specialist weeding out spies. The true outlaws of EVE are people who have earned their infamy through acts of ruthlessness in their chosen field. Over the years, we've interviewed and examined some of EVE's most notorious outlaws. In this article, I look back at four of EVE's most wanted, how they earned their infamy, and what they're doing today.
Gold Capped: How to calculate inscription costs and prices
Every week, Gold Capped brings you tips on how to make money on the auction house. This article from inscription specialist Steve Zamboni has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. With its myriad of materials and finished items, inscription can be one of the more complicated professions for a crafter who's trying to track his expenses and profits (or even to know if he's made a profit at all). Herb prices have changed dramatically over the past several months, dropping to record lows as farming bots proliferate and climbing just as dramatically during the ban wave that followed. After months of being spoiled by a market overflowing with cheap herbs, many players stopped paying attention to what they were paying to make each item. Now that herb prices are climbing, it's left a number of sellers scrambling to reprice their items and to take a closer look at what they're paying for their supplies.
