A Pony!

Wow. Well speculation is over and I was mistaken in presuming that the Celestial Steed would be a drop off Algalon which is listed as the final boss in VOA. Instead any player can purchase this mount for $25 from the blizzard store. From what I read there were high queues for folks waiting to purchase items from the Blizzard store and now there is a report that the mount generated $2 million dollars for Blizzard in just 4 hours!

I do want the mount but due to a recent mugging attempt I endured I will have to wait for my funds to be able to regenerate.

I understand players are upset that this mount is available for sale. However many arguements don't hold water as to why this mount should not be obtainable for cash. One I heard was the "I already pay $15 a month.... " which is utter fail. Players pay a lease for an account every month. Smart players can end up paying $13 instead of $15 to boot. Paying a subscription does not give one the right to "free" items from a store. Just like the pets, the mount is nice but optional. You don't need it to play. So if a player does not like the concept of paying for this mount, they don't have to buy it. It's like the Ipad arguments. No one is forcing anyone to buy an Ipad. The best reason not to get an Ipad, or a Celestial Steed is not wanting one.

Murkimus now available to all eligible account characters!

Joy!! I am very happy to find out that Murkimus is now available to all characters on the eligible accounts that participated on the arena tournament servers. I do have some alts that of course were not able to obtain this pet. However now they can! My one hope though is that the Blizzcon 2008 Bear mount be made available in a similar fashion. However this will be resolved once cross-server mail is implemented.

Bashiok states:

With the release of patch 3.3.3 those who received the Murkimus pet for their participation in the 2009 Arena Tournament will notice that the pet is being changed to apply to the entire World of Warcraft account that was requested to receive the pet. Players who have created characters on this same account since the tournament will see a Murkimus in their in-game mailboxes and all new characters on this account will receive it as well. The in-game mail containing this pet will go out in the near future.

With this change you’ll finally be able to play any of your characters, stand up defiantly, and exclaim “I’m Murkimus!”

edit: Please note that the information given was not accurate in the original message but has been updated to reflect that this is World of Warcraft license specific change, and is not applied to the entire Battle.net account.

Source.

Greed only on Frozen Orbs in 3.3.3

Wryxian, a EU CM, has confirmed that in Patch 3.3.3. players will not be able to roll need on Frozen Orbs. This is great news as some folks wait till the end to roll need on the orb, or someone will forget to roll need when players state that they will roll need on the orb at the end.

Yeah it just takes one person to press Need after everyone's pressed Greed on the Frozen Orbs and you miss out. But the good news is that in patch 3.3.3 this won't be the case anymore -- the roll for Frozen Orbs will be an automatic Greed roll. Rejoice!

Source.

Algalon Listed As Final Boss in VOA.

The EU's WOW site announces that Algalon is the final boss in VOA!

Sites like wow.com and MMO-champ (as of yet) have not determined where the celestial items that have been data mined are supposed to come from, this posting pretty much points to Algalon dropping them. There has been some discussion that Algalon would become more available to other players in Ulduar however placing him on VOA would make more sense and convenience.

Patch 3.3.3 Looking For Dungeon World Event Boss changes.

When the news came out about the changes to the LFD system to include holiday world event boss encounters I was very pleased. It is at times difficult to find a group on your server, get to the location, and then have to replace someone when the need arises. With this added to the system it will actually eliminate many of the little problems that players encountered.

There is some misunderstanding as to the changes since CM Zarhym stated:

Yes, the Dungeon Finder must be used. The interface will have a separate selection for special World Event bosses in dungeons. If players zone into the dungeon without using the Dungeon Finder, the bosses will not be there.

This also led me to have some misconceptions as to how this would operate. Would we no longer be able to get a group of friends or guild to run these limited encounters? Thankfully though there has been a little bit of clarification as to how this will work.

This will work just like the dungeons work now. You form a group or queue for a PUG group and you will be ported to the dungeon.

The ability to summon the boss for the encounter will no longer be needed.

This change will eliminate any issues with one member of the group leaving after the first four "summons" had been used. There is a lot more to this matter.

There was some important clarification how the boss encounters have changed thanks to this recent post!

Your group will zone in, fight the boss. Upon defeating the boss you will earn a "trove" that has a chance to contain a rare holiday item that most seek during these events. This will be exactly as how Oculus has a chance at awarding a drake mount to a player. There will be no rolling against other players. You just have a chance at being lucky. However you will only receive this ONCE per day, in the manner one obtains 2 frost emblems for their first random heroic of the day.

If a person has already had a boss kill for the day they are still able to participate in more encounters. Players will be able to roll other "normal" drops from these bosses thus making the holiday gear farmable.

Ever experience a wipe cause the group failed to understand the mechanics of the fight or you just got unlucky in some PUG? Well this is no longer a problem! No more wasted "summons"!!

There will be no limit as to how often you can farm for the gear on your characters with this change!

Some players have expressed frustration that their alts will not be permitted to participate with the "extra" summons they can provide however with no limitation to how often you can encounter the holiday bosses the need for alts is very much eliminated.

Some feel that this will directly affect the value of the Direbrew Remote that drops off Coren Direbrew, the Brewfest event boss located in Blackrock Depths (BRD).

The upcoming changes will remove the usefulness of the device to transport a group directly to the bar in BRD for the holiday boss. However this is not the only ability of the remote and it will still have an impact for the fight.

This device has the ability to summon TAFKA L80 ETC (The Artists Formally Know As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftan. Summoning the band will provide a 5 min buff increasing your stats by 5% and this stacks with Blessing of Kings.

The remote will also help those seeking to do reputation turn in for Thorium Brotherhood or for a quick run to obtain some Dire Brew from the Dark Iron Brewer at the bar. Dark Iron Ale which is needed for the Dark Moon Faire pet frog Jubjub can be obtained from Pugger Spazzring very quickly as well. This can sell well to those who lack the device and don't want to take the time to acquire the BRD key and clear their way through in order to access the quest that awards the Jubling frog.

One other issue that many have overlooked was how the holiday boss events affected players who were trying to do the dungeons as intended. BRD was infamous for having hostile mobs at max level aggro instantly to players of the proper level for the dungeon (52 - 60) making it impossible to zone in unless they recruited a character at a much higher level. Now that these mobs and the bosses are no longer accessible outside of the LFD tool this will no longer be an issue.

I am very happy to have these changes come about. This past Love is in the Air holiday I was only able to rarely find a group to do the holiday boss. From what I have read I am not the only one that had difficulty finding a group. Given that my guild collapsed I am dependent on PUGS to try to get to attempt these bosses and the LFD addition really fixes many problems.

Sorry for how the font changed in this post. I am posting too early in the morn and by quoting with a cut and paste, the format of this post went haywire. I tried setting the text back to normal but it won't cooperate with me. Maybe I am just tired how the blog site is very limiting.

CAD Comic

While I may not agree with everything Tim Buckley does, this very recent comic regarding the hot topic of GearScore is a great read.

Lunar Festival Elder Change.

So with all the changes to Love is in the Air which I am currently working on for my alts, I noticed that the Elder Ohanze that is inside Gundrak has been moved! Last year you could only gain access to him if you entered the dungeon in heroic mode as he was close to the extra boss. This now means that your character does not have to be level 80 to complete the achievements for the holiday. This will makes things flow faster for my characters. I just wish that Love is in the Air did not require you to zone into Naxx. This means you have to be 80. I may not be able to get this on my lock or druid. Oh well must try! I have 3 days!