Server Updates - WoW and LOTRO

I've finally got around to adding the new servers that you guys have been sending me over the last few weeks. This means that today there are 9 new WoW EU servers and 3 new WoW US servers!

I've also split LOTRO into two idioms - EU and US to reflect the way the game is setup and how providers sell their wares; in doing this I've also added 11 new EU LOTRO servers.

LOTRO listings still remain bare right now, but that is something I will be looking at soon, as well as bulking out VSOH and doing a reccy on the other games Eye On MOGS lists. f you see games which are poorly listed (and you want to buy for) then get on the contact page and send me an email!

That's all for now folks. I'll be trying to send a personal thank you to all those who contributed to make this update possible!

-Mike

100K Listings!

It's party time here at Eye On MOGS HQ! We're now consistantly listing over 100,000 MOG products!

It's a pretty cool milestone and it's about 10x the number of listings we had when we started back in late 2005. I think I can honestly say we've made good on our promise to keep expanding our listings and service based on that!

Of course these numbers wouldn't mean anything if it wasn't for the people who use Eye On MOGS. We add new providers and keep working on the site to help you guys out. The more you use, the more we can do.

Future Milestones

Our next milestone will be 200K listings, but before we can get there I will be doning my thinking cap and sweating over a hot keyboard to overhaul the Eye On MOGS system to be able to cope with the increased load. That is a work in progress and with the number of new potential stores we would like to add you can bet I'm getting through things as quickly as possible!

Quality

I'd just like to say something about the providers we list, and the reason we don't list all of them. It's simple: Quality. The sites you see on Eye On MOGS have been vetted by us for honesty, security and professionalism before being added. Now obviously sometimes orders will go arwy and we do like to hear from you when that happens so we can make sure providers are still behaving - but in general you can be sure of a problem free purchase with the stores we list.

We could add all and sundry like some similar site do, but where's the point in us pointing you to a site we're not sure we trust? What if 50% of our users got ripped off? Wouldn't be good for you, wouldn't be good for us!

Community Submissions

That said I do really appreciate all the suggestions that come in from the community regarding new providers. Keep letting me know! I do try to check all of them out and stick them on the list to contact if I think their cool. Not everyone wants to be a part of Eye On MOGS which is fair - perhaps it's because some of their prices are pretty high...

I'd also like to say thanks to everyone who submits new servers for games, points out problems with some listings, suggests new games and suggests new features/improvements for Eye On MOGS. In short a big thanks and shout out to everyone who takes the time to be in touch! I try to reply to everyone, but I know I often don't manage - sos.

Happy gaming all!

FYI: Gold Scam

Via GamerWealth

"There is a scam becoming popular in the RMT market. A player in-game may see our characters standing next to each other and they will assume its a gold sale. Once we split up, they will send a tell saying that our DB crashed (or some other made up story) and we need the gold back.

GamerWealth, nor ANY website, will ever ask you to return sold gold to them. Please do not fall for this scam. If you're playing a PvP game we ask that the only thing you deliver to them is a beating they wont soon forget :P

(If you have doubts about anything a character in-game tells you, please contact our site to verify that the character belongs to us)"

Take it in and make sure no-one scams you out of your gold!

Auction House. Where for art thou?

It's been a while since my last blog entry - life has been busy for me (nothing of any real interest though).

Finally today I had a chace to settle down for a short WoW session. I chose to head back to Zangarmarsh where I had a few quests left to tidy up. As I was swimming about killing countless Fenclaw Thrashers (with an awful drop rate on the quest item), I started wondering about the Auction House.

I've not been to the Auction House in, well I'm not sure I've been since the expansion came out. It suddenly dawned on me (Duh. I know) that the nearest AH was way back in Azeroth. So, I did a little looking around to find out why this was and I came across the following from Blizzard:

" As others have said we want to keep Azeroth inhabited post-60 and by leaving the Auction Houses and class trainers we can keep an entire game where everyone is interacting at some point instead of a large chunk of players just moving from new land to new land as we release expansions, never to be seen again in the old cities. Performance concerns are also obviously factored in as well."

In principle I agree, it's nice to keep the population pre- and post-expansion mixing. But then again does that really benefit the experience? Chances are level 60+ visits back to Azeroth are fleeting (probably selling loot from OL). I wonder whether it would have been better to attract back level 60+ players by adding some level 60+ content to Azeroth and Kalimdor rather than forcing them back just to train or use the AH.

There are a few spaces left in WoW which remain pretty empty (Karazhan is a god example of a level 70 dungeon which has been sneaked into Azeroth), and I'm sure you could add higher level content into these areas.

Alternatively I suppose you could include quests in Outland which send you back to Azeroth to work through a quest chain or two. The quests might be easy at 60+ (assuming you keep the mobs at around 60 in Azeroth), but could be made more challenging (and very difficult for those under 60+) by ensuring you always had to face down two mobs at a time, or even leaving it easyish to complete but giving more quests in the chain which require moving around a lot, or getting a large X of Z things.

My other thoughts drift to those 'old' and now pretty defunct dungeons. I think it's a real shame that the gear from Outland matches up to the Molten Core and it's ilk sets that doing these dungeons is now pointless (gearwise at least and thats what people mostly do them for I guess). Others like strathholme and xxxx I can live with being unused as generally people are just levelling through these or perhaps hunting for the gear to help them through MC or something.

There's been a lot of discussion about how to bring people back to the old content, I guess the main issue is that returning to old content doesn't fit with the story progression, although you might get around that by having a version of an instance for 60's and a version for 70's.

Imagine a MC where Ragnaros has been slain the dungeon left in ruin only for another lore character to take over the place, or for Ragnaros's essence to reform - or something.

Hey, there's an idea. Why not send groups of 2-3 70's on quests into the old dungeons, providing loot for quest chains that is only available in old instances?

I've strayed from my original point. I wish the AH would make an appearance in Outland. The trek back for me serves to real social purpose and is instead a bit of an unwelcome time waster. I might be on my own in that opinion, but that's how I feel :)

GamePal, ZacGame & News

Normally Mondays are a bit of a so-so affair, but not today!

This Monday has seen the addition of GamePal to Eye On MOGS, bringing their great product catalog to your front door and pushing our listings so close to 100,000 I can almost taste it!

The GamePal listings are a little buggy at the moment and should be fixed over the next few days - needless to say it's something I want to clean up! BTW I do appreciate it when you guys let me know there are issues with any of the listings, sometimes it is hard to keep on top of them all!

Today also see's an integration of the Eye On MOGS Blog onto the main Eye On MOGS site in the guise of the News and Information page. Granted that results in some duplication but not everyone who uses Eye On MOGS uses the blog and vice-versa, so I wanted to make sure everyone had access to the content.

I've some changes planned for the news page (already), but we'll have to see when those spring up.

Finally I noticed a new incoming link from ZacGame and I just wanted to say thanks!

WoW - The Duracell of MMOs!

... When other MMOs are about ready to quit, WoW just keeps on going, and going, and going.

Sometimes it seems that half the time I spend on Eye On MOGS is spent adding new World of Warcraft servers... Today is no exception. Once more the community has spoken and exposed a few server related chinks in the sites armor - the response? To add the servers below to the now behemoth list of WoW servers!

EU
Dun Modr, Der Mithrilorden, Nefarian, Anachronos, Nazjatar, Defias Brotherhood

US
Korialstrasz, The Scryers, Velen

That brings the total number of WoW servers (on Eye On MOGS) to US - 202, EU - 202 (weird)

Shout Out to: Elite PVPers

I just noticed that Elite PvPers has stickied a thread about Eye On MOGS over here: http://www.elitepvpers.de/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=58&t=40182&s=

I just wanted to say thanks (Danke!).

I'm glad you guys have found Eye On MOGS useful. I noticed some mention of ItemGarden in the posts. I have been trying to work with them, but as of yet we have not been able to agree anything. Rest assured that new providers will continue to be added, and Item Garden will probably give in one day!

Happy gaming all!

Mike