WoW Server Updates

The following servers have made it onto our lists today (in no particular order):

US

Sentinels, Garithos, Nazjatar, Arygos, Fenris, Drenden, Shandris, Blood Furnace, Bladefist, Azuremyst, Alterac Mountains, Area52, Ravencrest, Auchindoun, Coilfang, Farstriders, Quel'dorei, Rivendare, Tortheldrin, Trollbane, Zangarmarsh

EU

Anetheron, Gnomeregn, Kilrogg, Garithos, Shandris, Twisted Nether, Alterac Mountains, Area 52, Hellfire, Bronze Dragonflight, Ravencrest, Das Syndikat, Auchindoun, Echsenkessel, Festung der Sturme, Ghostlands, Todeswache

That's 35 new servers! I have to apologise for the delay in adding some of these. Thanks go out to all those who submitted missing servers to us!

As always please allow some time for these new servers to get listings, for some it will be 24-48 hours, for others it will be longer. Remember to keep bugging us if we drop the ball on any of them!

To help with the community submitted missing servers I've updated the missing server page today. A number of submissions were coming through with no idiom or game mentioned and while it's possible to check manually what these should be, it adds time and complication which isn't necessary.

So I've updated the rather lack-lustre missing server form so you can easily select the game/idiom, pop in your server name, email address and any comments you want.

Happy gaming all,
Mike

Gamer Wealth offer EXCLUSIVE 10% off coupon

New to Eye On MOGS, Gamer Wealth, is generously offering our users 10% off their purchases throughout February! All you've got to do is enter "vip@eyeonmogs" in the coupon box when you make your purchase. If you're buying Lineage 2 Adena, Guild Wars Gold, Everquest 1/2 Plat, EVE ISK or DDO Plat then this is the offer for you!

You may find that the Gamer Wealth website is offline when you visit. Unfortunately, due to staffing issues (their new remember), there is a 4 hour break in delivery each day during which time the operators close down the site.

That might be a bit of a pain, but it's better than placing your order and then being left high and dry with no explanation as to the delay in delivery.

No More Gold on eBay

I just came across the following posting on Slashdot which basically notes that eBay are making changes to their policies such that selling virtual items (WoW Gold, FFXI Gil etc) will no longer be possible with them. Virtual Economy.org also have their own take on the story.

"The growing popularity of Massively Multiplayer games has brought the issue of ownership rights in virtual worlds, and the appropriateness of what is called 'real money transfer' (RMT) into an increasingly public light. The success of the company IGE, as well as the launch of Sony Online Entertainment's 'Station Exchange' service would seem to indicate that RMT is now an acceptable part of Massive gaming. The well-known auction site eBay has recently made a policy decision that may throw these assumptions into a different light. Following up on a rumour that's been going around I spoke today with a media representative for the company, who confirmed that eBay is now delisting all auctions for 'virtual artifacts' from the site. This includes currency, items, and accounts/characters; not even the 'neopoints' used in the popular Neopets service is exempt from this decision. Read on below for the company's rationale for this decision, and a few words on the impact this could have on future RMT sales.

Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one. The policy on digitally delivered goods states: "The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner." Given the nebulous nature of ownership in online games, eBay has decided the prudent decision is to remove the possibility for players to sell what might be the IP of other parties via their service. Mr. Durzy made it a point to say that initial listings of virtual property would not have punitive actions. Their assumption, he said, is that most users break with policies because they're unaware of them, rather than maliciously. Initial infractions will result in a delisting of items, and an attempt to educate the user on the policy. Persistent disregard for the policies, of course, will result in a removal of the seller's account.

We've spoken before on the possibility of taxation of virtual goods in the U.S. and abroad, as well as the economic impact these sales can have. With the removal of a very popular, very public source of virtual currency and goods from the market, what does this mean for the future of RMT? Will small businessmen who previously worked via eBay now turn to larger independent sites like IGE? Given that eBay is ipso facto declaring virtual goods to be the property of the game makers and not the players who 'earn' them, what does this mean for the future of virtual rights in general?"

Reaching Over 70,000 Products!

The number of products Eye On MOGS lists has certainly changed since we started out in October 2005. Back then there were only a handful of providers and we were lucky to get over 15,000 products to compare.

Not quite the same today. Over the last week I've seen the number of listings peak over 70,000 on several updates! That's a lot of products.

Of course more listings are not the only change Eye On MOGS has seen over the last 15 months.

We've added Market Watch results to your search result pages you can also see whether perhaps today is a good day to buy, or whether playing the waiting game is the way to go. Prices change frequently so if you see a good deal we recommend you grab it while it lasts!

We added the 'Check Your Server' tool for all those looking to start a new twink on (or migrate to) a server where Gold (Gil, ISK etc) was affordable.

There is now an XML Feed for all search results for those of you into programming and development, allowing you to include Eye On MOGS results in your own pages or process them for your own purposes. For those of you not interested in programming, perhaps guilds who simply wanted to include results for their server on the guild site we included examples in both PHP and JavaScript.

There were many other changes, including the missing server form which I have to thank the community for using! It is your vigelence which heps keep the listings as up to date as they are. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

Yes it's been a time of change, hopefully for the better, and as we move into 2007 you can bet there will be more changes on the way to help you guys get the most bang for your buck!

Welcome to Gamer Wealth

I just wanted to quickly post and welcome Gamer Wealth to Eye On MOGS.

Their a new startup in the MMORPG services industry, but both the founders have worked for one of the biggest players in the past, and having spoken to them I am confident that (although new) these guys are determined to offer a profesional service.

Their prices are also nice and low! Right now you can buy Lineage 2 Adena, Guild Wars Gold, Everquest 1/2 Plat, EVE ISK or DDO Plat from Gamer Wealth, but I am assured more games and services are on the way.

Outland? Outlandish!

Finally after what feels like forever the Burning Crusade is here - on my computer!

My copy arrived on Saturday morning, a few days after the official release so as to miss some of the first night queues I envisaged. Installing was quick and easy thanks to all the patches I already had and then I was in and ready to step through the Dark Portal into lands unknown.

I have to say I spent an unhealthy amount of time on Saturday and Sunday geeking out, managing to ding to 61 before collapsing on Sunday night. And good fun it was to!

I logged in again today over lunch to do a little questing and make use of the rested XP I'd accrued over Monday. I decided to head off to Gor'Gaz outpost and have a crack at the 'Fel Spirits' quest. Seemed straight forward enough, and the right level for me. After 30 minutes I had 3 spirits killed, I would have had the 10 had it not been for a pesky preist stealing all my spirits!

But thats not the point of this post. While I was killing the Shattered Hand Guards to get to the spirits I picked up an unexpected item. A Blue item (Oooo), a Tome (Ooooo), a Mage item (bah - I'm a Rogue), a Level 70 item (Oooooo) - Wait. What!?

I don't know if the rules have changed in Outland, but my recollection was that mobs drop items around 3-5 levels below their level. So, how did a level 61 drop a level 70 blue? My guess is a bug, but in any case I'm holding onto this because I figure when Mages hit 70 its going to fetch a handsome price!

Anyone else found any unexpected or just really cool items during their travels around the outlandish Outland?

Edit: I also just realised I picked up a quest reward for marking towers at Zeth'gor. A blue leather chest piece with 425 armor! Not a big fan of armor as a rogue (other stats on it are nice though), but it made me stop and stare as this is by far the most armor I've ever seen on a leather item - and at level 60?

Level 70 in 28 Hours!

Following on from my post the other day about how much a level 70 character would sell for, and how long until the first level 70 arrived... Well, it turns out that the first level 70 arrived after only 28 hours!

WoWInsider have their take on the story, and there is also an interview with the player in question over at World of Raids.

With the aid of his guild, Millenium, Gullerbone has managed an incredible feat. The planning and commradary shown by his guild is quite humbling, and although their efforts have resulted in some haters proclaiming Gullerbone to have no life you do have to wonder if taking 28 hours out to do this is actually better than spending 4hrs an evening for a month (or whatever it might take the average joe).

I for one appluad his efforts. My question now is: What do you do next?

Targets. It's all about targets

I don't know about everyone else, but I had a few things that I wanted to try to get done before the Burning Crusade was released. Top of my list was to get an epic mount, closely followed by a full tier 0.5 set (in my case Darkmantle) and finally to get a few PvP epics from Alterac Valley.

Now I've still got a few days until my copy of the Burning Crusade turns up, but I think that's unfortunately still going to leave me a ways off my goal :( Not that I really mind, I expect I can survive in Outland without all the above, and it will give me a reason to come back to Azeroth on occasion - at least until I get to level 65 or so when I guess tier 0.5 will be looking pretty uninteresting!

How about you guys? Did you intend to get some things done before BC? Tidy up your quest log? Grind a bit more rep? See a few new dungeons? Base jump off of Loch Modan damn?

Now the expansion is here will you be dumping those goals, or pressing on for the principal of it?

P.S I've already got 2 goals in mind for level 70 (a long way off I'm sure):- 1) Get a flying mount and, 2) triumphantly return to Azeroth and solo Molten Core! :)

MMO Combat and God of War 2

I spend a lot of time ranting about how MMOs could improve, at least it feels that way. Its no that I don't enjoy MMOs, hell I wouldn't spend so much time and money on them if I didn't!, I just think its worthwhile making a note when an idea strikes you, or another game inspires you.

In this case the game that has inspired me is God of War 2. Not an MMO, but of a fantasyish genre. Head to YouTube and do a search, watch the official trailer, looks cool no?

The aspect of God of War 2 that caught my eye was the combat. In particular the way your character attacks opponents larger than he. I still can't get over how cool this is. Basically the character crawls all over the larger opponent in order to inflict his attacks.

I play a rogue in WoW, and perhaps that's why this trailer caught my sttention so much, but I could just imagine an MMO where when you face off against lets say an ogre (as an Elf), you would have a combat system which would mean in order to inflict your deadlier moves (lets take backstab as an example) you would need to follow a sequence of keys, rather than just get enough combo points or something. But that bit is less important (to me at least) than seeing your character crawl up onto the ogres back and bring his blade down with deadly precision.

I'm not sure how such a combat system would apply to all your normal MMO classes, that's something I will leave to the developers :) - But for me a visually appealing and potentially more skillfull form of combat such as this would be a welcome change from the existing point-and-click combat in MMOs.

Thoughts?

Discrepency-amundo!

"Holy banannas Batman! Can we get ourselves over to the European WoW realms please? It's over 6 times cheaper to buy gold there than here in the good 'ol US of A!"

I had noticed some time ago a tendency for the value of EU gold to drop, while its US counterpart slowly rose. It seems that this process has in fact continued, and right now the cheapest EU server is about 6x cheaper for a given amount of gold than it is on the cheapest US!

What does it all mean? Well in short I don't know. Perhaps there is more demand for EU gold and therefore suppliers can cut the price and sell more units. Perhaps there is a lack of demand and therefore prices are lowered to increase interest. Any comments from WoW Gold suppliers?

I'm not going to attempt to carry an educated discussion on this because, well, I don't have enough information or time to right now :)

But what do you think? Moral quibbles about Gold buying aside, why would the two markets look so very different?

Strange Noises in Azeroth

I don't know whether anyone else is experiencing this, but ever since the 2.0.3 patch I've been getting random noises as I make my way around Azeroth.

While taking a Griffin ride I keep hearing what sounds like Dragonkin (unless this is a new sound for the Griffin?), while queuing for Alterac Valley I consistantly get the 'Join or Hide' sound play every 30 seconds or so, I hear guards charging to battle when there are none around.. and a selection of other disembodied or misplaced audio.

Anyone else experiencing this? Perhaps my installation is corrupt, or perhaps I'm loosing my marbles :)

Selling a Level 70 Character

The Burning Crusade is upon us! The Dark Portal has reopened and brave adventurers are pouring through into Hellfire Penninsula to fight the demonic menace that lays beyond. Meanwhile new faces are taking their first steps in the world of Azeroth - alliances have been forged and lines drawn as the Drenai and Blood Elves become either your new friends or sworn enemies.

In amongst all the eager adventurers there will be many with a single purpose in mind - get to level 70. Why? For some this will simply be for the kudos of being the first to get there, or to be among the most power characters in the game. For some this will be business.

Of course it is easiest to generate gold and items for sale when you hit the level cap - at this point a masive majority of the mobs in the game become soloable and farmable for the goodies they drop.

Ok, so no doubt our RMT friends will already be hacking their way through Outland and toward level 70, but here's my question: How much would a level 70 character sell for?

What's it worth to you, in real money terms, to have the most powerful character, and how important is it to have that character immediately?

The other question on my mind is: How soon?

You can grind to level 60 in 7 days /played time in the original WoW, and I'm sure I read somewhere that the progression to 70 was supposed to be a similar experience - so could we begin seeing level 70s in just a weeks time?

Personally, while I would be tempted to simply buy a level 70 as soon as one was available, I would also lament all the content that I would miss out on getting to the level myself. If I already had a level 70 then my opinion would probably be very different.

Time will tell - perhaps by the time I've grinded to 65 I'll be cracking open the piggy bank and putting down my bid :)

How Important is Character Customisation?

In WoW when you start a character you get to pick how they will look, loosely. For example you can pick from a predefined range of skin colours, facial expressions, hair and facial hair styles and colours. There are a few other options, depending on your race.

Any further customisation of your character comes from the equipment you wear. Which does lead to some good variety, however once you reach end-game this variety can begin to dimish as everyone pushes for either top tier PvE or PvP gear.

Other MMOs provide further options to customise your character, for example altering height within a range, build (i.e. muscular or athletic), eye colour and a few other options.

As I was running around Stormwind this morning skilling up my leather working from 0 to 125 (which cost about 40 Gold in mats and an hour in time) I let my mind wander and take in the characters around me.

In general I suppose I don't spend a lot of time looking at the players around me, and therefore I wonder why you would want to customise your character in WoW at all. Especially true when you probably only ever see the back of their head :)

But then I also have a compulsion to show my own individuallity in the game I am playing, both in my style of play, relationships with guildmates and how my character looks.

I shant argue that putting in the time on a more robust character customistion system makes any business sense, because I don't really know what would be involved or how a community/customer base as a whole would feel. However, for my own purposes here are a few thoughts on character customisation and how you might implement it (in WoW or any other MMO):

Continuing Customisation

First and foremost allow customisation as the game progresses. I'm not aware of an MMO which allows you to change the character setup you pick at the start of the game, except for your gear of course.

There was a post about this in the offical WoW Suggestions Forum where someone had suggested a 'barber shop' where the player could restyle their hair at least. Another suggestion was to allow gear to be customised by allowing players to decorate it with motifs, the same way you pick a motif for your guild tabard.

More Options Than You Can Shake A Stick At

When you're making your WoW beating MMO include the most feature-full character creation process you can afford to. For example, include deforming bones in your models so that players can contort their characters faces as they please to form unique expressions. Include other tools such as being able to 'draw on' a scar. Include physical changes such as musculature, height, build, limb length/ratio.

Give Characters Attitude

I play a rogue in WoW, and I like to think that rogues are devilish creatures, no matter their race. However, my night elf rogue is quite a happy guy really when you look at him. How about allowing players to set a default 'attitude' for their character, from a small list for each class? This would determine the idle and emote animations for the character. Perhaps a less than trustworthy rogue would not simply stand idley watching the world, but rather polish his blades, practice a few sword swings, or lightly play with a dagger - for example.

Jeez. What Happend to You?

Ok. This isn't customisation in the hands of the player, but would lend to some different looks. Taking WoW as my example, as I always do, lets suppose that the durability of your equipment had some effect on how it looked. For example after you've hacked your way through Molten Core (or perhaps Naxxramas these days) with your guild and wiped for the 3rd time your gear is likely going to be looking pretty shabby, no?

So why not have a few 'states' for the gear in the game? Your sword might have dents in it, your shield missing a chunk from the side, tabard hanging in rags, spaulders mangled and your face covered in wounds/dirt (gotta keep away from that M rating right?!)

In Closing

I'm not saying any of the above would work, or are technically feasible. Nor am I trying to detract from WoW as a great game. This is just my own personal observation and opinion on how a great game, and genre of games, might continue to develop and immerse players that little bit more.

What do you think? Is customising your virtual self important to you? Interesting, but not really necessary? Or, at worst, a process which gets in the way of you starting the game!?