Blizzard and Battle.net

Happy anniversary, Warcraft!

Posted by Peter (Devee) on November 23, 2014
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, BlizzCon, Blog, Carpe Flux Capacitor, Devee, Gear, Glitches / Secrets / Hidden Things, Holidays, Journal, Mooglegem, Petros, PVP, Quests, Raiding, Transmog, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Petros

Happy 10th anniversary, World of Warcraft! Happy 20th anniversary Warcraft!

Today seems like a good day to reflect a little. That’s Petros in the screenshot, my Night Elf warrior of S A D on Uther. He was my very first character. You can see that the guild is pretty dead; that’s fine, because I don’t know who anyone is. I think I joined because my high level friend was in it. I started playing WoW as soon as it was released and made this character to play with my roommate at the time, Antonio. Everyone out leveled me very quickly because I took things slow. I always ended up switching characters quite a bit. Before hitting 20 or so I switched to a tauren hunter to try it. I ended up liking Horde more. I then switched to a PVP server and made an orc hunter. Along the way, there were a few mages and priests that never hit 10. Eventually I tried my original character again, getting him to 23, before switching to my current server, Kil’jaeden. I started with a tauren shaman who got to his 30s and then made my current priest. My plan was to heal with Mooglegem until she caught up to my level and then switch back to my shaman. That switch back never happened.

Warcraft itself always reminds me of my friend Lloyd from elementary school because we used to talk about it a lot. Honestly, I’m not sure I ever actually finished one of the games. I mostly screwed around in multiplayer, but I was terrible anyways. Regardless, I knew the general plot. I don’t think the first two are really playable anymore, but the third one holds up. I should go back and play it.

World of Warcraft gave me a lot of great memories. It seems like such a different game now – not just because of the mechanical changes but because of the mindset. Once you see the game through to max level, it changes your perspective.

I remember being so amazed at the size of the game. When I finally got my Night Elf all the way to Ironforge, I had a dilemma. Do I set my hearth there, giving up the quest lines I was doing, or do I hearth back home and give up the long trek to reach the city that was so full of people I had to use my roommate’s computer so I wouldn’t crash? I wrote an article for WoW Insider on this subject.

I ran dungeons with a group of friends I knew in real life. I remember Antonio yelling at me not to attack things that weren’t aggressive. I wanted their skin.

When one of my characters first reached the Barrens, one of the quests said something about the Horde soldiers needing me to help them. It felt so cool. “I’m one of them now!”

hitting 80 with thrall

I finally hit the level cap for the first time in Wrath of the Lich King. I made sure to plan it so I could ding by turning in a quest to Thrall.

I joined a terrible guild to raid because they did a lot of old raids just for fun. They didn’t raid the current tier at all, but there was no stress of an application process. I got over that quickly.

Joining Carpe Flux Capacitor was a big deal. Who knew I was making such a great friends? I’ve met a pretty good chunk of the guild despite not living near most of them. It helps that I live in Irvine so some of them come to me for BlizzCon. It did feel a little odd at my guildmate’s wedding to say, “How do I know him? Oh, we play WoW together.”

8 hour warsong gulch wsg

Once there was a bug and the flag despawned completely from Warsong Gulch. I played in this one match, with breaks for dinner, for over eight hours.

Moogle made delicious cookies for everyone participating in our guild’s Secret Santa.

Bulleto, Mooglegem’s tauren hunter, made me a mechanohog. I tried it and killed the both of us almost immediately.

I was so excited when we finally killed Arthas after weeks of failing.

The quest line to get Quel’delar was one of my absolute favorite memories. I did it with Mooglegem, and we had a blast. I can’t use swords, so I received the Hammer of Purified Flame. I still have it, and it’s a popular transmog choice.

I’ve had a ton of wonderful memories in World of Warcraft, and I’m sure there are many more to come.

The true Warlords of Draenor upgrade process

Posted by Peter (Devee) on November 14, 2014
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III, Reaper of Souls, Videos, Videos, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This is the really satisfying part of the upgrade that no one ever mentions.

In all honesty, I do enjoy the Blizzard mousepads. When I get a new Blizzard game, I always enjoy switching mousepads. Sometimes I might find myself thinking, “wait, what was the latest release?” and then I can just look under my mouse. Okay, that never happens.

As for Warlords of Draenor, I don’t want to dwell too much on it here. I’ll probably talk about it more over the weekend. However, I’ll briefly discuss my initial thoughts. Despite server troubles, I’ve really enjoyed it. The introduction experience in Tanaan Jungle is sweet, and I love the cinematic way of introducing the warlords (or buildings in the garrison). I love feeling powerful and being recognized as a hero. The garrison is super fun. I’m very happy.

Robin Williams petition

Posted by Peter (Devee) on August 18, 2014
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

As most people probably know by now, Robin Williams passed away on the 11th of this month. He wasn’t an actor a particularly tracked in recent years, but I definitely have pleasant memories of him when I was younger. At least from his movies, he sure seemed to be a kind-hearted, happy individual. He was also an avid gamer; the Nintendo commercials with his daughter Zelda are kind of obvious examples. He was also a fan of World of Warcraft.

On the 12th, Shaun Prescott for PC Gamer reported on a fan petition by Jacob Holgate to Blizzard, asking them to include an NPC memorializing Robin Williams. It gave an example, a character in the World’s End Tavern telling his best jokes. That would be amazing in my opinion. The World’s End Tavern is an awesome location in game that already contains Perry Gatner and his stand-up routine , The Artists Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, and Haris Pilton.

Prescott noted that an update by Holgate on the change.org petition stated that “In less than twenty four hours [they’ve] earned eleven thousand signatures,” although I only see 10,975 on the petition at this time.

@Celestalon has already noted that Blizzard has seen the petition and are “taking care of it.”

Good on Blizzard to respond so quickly. The official World of Warcraft Twitter account also tweeted this:

Megan Farokhmanesh of Polygon reported that fans have also held memorials in World of Warcraft, including this one by Dylan Hecht.

I hope to see Robin Williams in game soon.

Sources:

Guild dinner at Blizzcon

Posted by Peter (Devee) on November 11, 2013
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, BlizzCon, Carpe Flux Capacitor, Diablo III, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Reaper of Souls, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

guild dinner at blizzcon

BlizzCon was this weekend, and I found the announcements pretty exciting. Despite living just twenty to thirty minutes from the convention center, I didn’t go. I think it feels less special as a convention because it’s so close, but I do watch the stream. I’ll be posting about some of the announcements and my feelings about them later. I have something more important to mention first!

What would World of Warcraft be without people with whom to play? Some of my guildies came down, and got to hang out this weekend. I’m second from the right, in the red shirt. I stole the pic from my guild leader, so hopefully she doesn’t mind. I went to dinner with three out-of-towners and Mooglegem on Friday night, and Saturday night the group of us above went to dinner. That includes four people I met (in person) this weekend, which was great.

In the photo, you might notice a cookie jar between a glass of water and a beer. Moogle baked cookies and brought them with her in that jar. While we in line at a restaurant, she handed them out to us. A girl behind us got excited, asking where we got the cookies. Moogle explained that she baked them and brought them with her. She seemed sad, and Moogle offered her a cookie. She got really excited, accepted, tried it, and then told Moogle how good it was! Later, when we were seated, Moogle offered cookies to our waiter and waitress. The waiter took one fairly early and thought it was great. It was later in the meal when the waitress accepted, and she also told Moogle how good she thought it was. A few minutes later, a different waitress came over to us, telling us that she didn’t know who baked the cookies but that her coworker shared a piece with her and she thought they were amazing. Moogle gave one to her too. Everyone loves cookies!

As for the content from BlizzCon itself, I was pretty impressed. I think Warlords of Draenor sounds very exciting and the changes are, generally, good ones. I’m also pleased with what I saw of Reaper of Souls. I’ve never played a MOBA, but I’m optimistic about Heroes of the Storm (and the trailer was fantastic). I’d actually not played Hearthstone in a while, but the convention made me excited to play once more. Adventures sound particularly cool! And I guess StarCraft was there. I don’t play it. I’ll post more in-depth about the announcements in the future!

Siege of Orgrimmar Trailer

Posted by Peter (Devee) on August 16, 2013
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, Lore, Mists of Pandaria, Raiding, Role-Playing, Trailers and Cutscenes, Videos, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Wow. I’m impressed with most patch trailers, but I loved this one. By talking about it, I’m spoiling it, so please watch the trailer before reading.

Okay?

Okay.

Taran Zhu’s back-and-forth with Hellscream was great. They seemed to take turns having the upper-hand. I liked when Taran Zhu brought up Grom Hellscream, although I’m not sure when he learned of Grom. I didn’t catch that he got impaled on Hellscream’s axe on my first watch. I also found it interesting that the trailer opened with butterflies and when the sha energies spread out from the heart of Y’shaarj, it corrupts a butterfly.

I’ve been wondering about something Hellscream said. Taran Zhu says “I have fought besides the tauren, trolls, and others. You are nothing like them.” Hellscream responds, “they are no longer part of my Horde!” Is Hellscream referring to those who are rebelling against him or to all tauren? Up to this point, it seemed like he was still accepting of tauren. He thought of them under orcs, but still felt they contributed. He seemed to consider them much higher than the other races of the horde. Hellscream tolerated the Blood Elves and goblins and largely ignored the pandaren and Forsaken. As far as I can tell, the Darkspear were no longer considered part of his Horde. By the release of patch 5.4, are we to assume that his Horde consists solely of orcs? It seems very plausible that he would have heard that Baine was working with the Darkspear Rebellion, so it wouldn’t be surprising.

The scene in which the navies arrive is also great. When was the last time we saw Horde (well, former Horde at this point) and Alliance forces so intermingled? I found the sails interesting. I see Horde sails, red with the black Horde symbol. The Forsaken are present with their purple sails. I assume both the blue and white sails belong to the Alliance, but I’m actually not positive. (Anyone who plays Alliance care to comment?) I wasn’t sure on black and red striped sails, but YouTube commenters pointed out that those ships belong to the Bloodsail Buccaneers. What are they doing attacking Orgrimmar too? Very interesting!

Blizzard does an amazing job with the story, and it’s in such an odd way as well. There’s really not that much story, and it’s usually not a huge deal in game. They’re excellent at creating background lore to hype people for playing. Escalation’s lore was also great in my opinion. There was a formal declaration of a Darkspear Rebellion led by my own racial leader – much deserved after Garrosh Hellscream declared martial law in the Echo Isles and rounded up the Darkspear in the Valley of Spirits. But in game, it just meant that I farmed Kor’kron in the Northern Barrens. That doesn’t change the fact that I was incredibly excited to be joining the Darkspear Rebellion just as I’m excited to come together with the other armies of Azeroth to bring judgement upon Hellscream.

I can’t wait for the Siege of Orgrimmar.

Microtransactions in WoW

Posted by Peter (Devee) on July 10, 2013
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, Game Mechanics, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Bashiok recently posted confirming that an in game store coming. This makes me really nervous about the future of WoW. An in game store that sells the same things that are currently for sale on the Web is fine. These things are all cosmetic. However, an experience buff begins to cross the line, and Lesser Charms greatly crosses the line.

I know other people might feel differently, but to me, the experience buff isn’t much of a problem. I wouldn’t purchase it. You normally hit the level cap long before you finish all the zones of the expansion, and I like to quest through them. There’s no reason for me to pay for it. However, I hate having to grind for Lesser Charms. If I could purchase Lesser Charms for real money, I could bypass a part of the game I don’t enjoy. I’d also be paying a monthly subscription to be able to grind for them (among other things, of course) as well as a second fee to skip that part for which I already paid. This encourages Blizzard to design the game in such a way that gameplay is boring and unenjoyable. That’s crazy!

All of these types of in-app purchases are similarly strange. Consider a normal price-model for an offline game. The game is fun and enjoyable, and you want to play it. To play it, you must purchase it. This makes sense. Consider a game that uses a DLC model for everything. The game is free, but each additional level (or levels) has a fee attached. Again, the game is fun, you want to play more levels, so you purchase them. This makes sense. In those two scenarios, you’re paying more money to play the game more because you enjoy it. Now consider the Lesser Charms. If you purchase Lesser Charms, you’re paying money to skip a part of the game. Instead of creating something enjoyable that people want and charging them for it, they’ve created something that people don’t want and then are charging to skip it. Despicable.

The thing that will rope people into this is that they’re not simply paying to skip the part they don’t like. They’re paying to skip to the part they do like. Raiders who don’t want to grind could look at this as a way for getting to the content they do like easier. (I know, they can raid without Lesser Charms. But I’ll consider the “content they do like” as “raiding with as many charms as possible.”)

I enjoy seeing dailies, but I don’t enjoy grinding them endlessly. No, I don’t want to get rid of them, but sure, they seem like a grind, and I’d be happy to avoid some of it. If I pay for Lesser Charms, however, I’m encouraging Blizzard to continue with this idiotic and immoral game design. Yes, it’d be tempting to occasionally offset my dailies by purchasing Lesser Charms, but then Blizzard would be content to continue. If, contrary to purchasing Lesser Charms, no one purchased any and people stopped grinding dailies, I’m sure Blizzard would change their design. People might pull away from dailies, but it feels like too much of an obligation for many raiders, so I don’t expect that to happen.

Bashiok said that they’ll “be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items [they’re] looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback…” Maybe they’ll see that player feedback is negative and no go forward with this. Some people are saying that this will only be for Asian regions. That would calm me a little because it wouldn’t be hurting the game I play, but I still think it’s a terrible game design choice. Regardless, all we can do now is wait and see (and give negative feedback).

To anyone reading this, I highly recommend you avoid purchasing such buffs or enhancements in World of Warcraft or any other game!

Suggested Reading: Of Former-GMs, Project Tyria, and D3 Criticism

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 31, 2012
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III, Guild Wars, Suggested Reading, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

IAMA former Blizzard customer service representative for WoW aka Gamemaster. AMAA, Panigg, reddit, 5/27/12 via Titan Focus

The Titan Focus post pulls out anything in the Ask Me Anything related to Titan. However, the actual AMA is a treasure trove of interesting, inside-Blizzard information. I don’t really see anything that’s Earth-shattering, but Blizzard fans should find it fascinating.

Project Tyria, Alucardalina Claire, via Massively, 5/21/12

Project Tyria compares the worlds of Guild Wars 2 and the original Guild Wars, which take place 250 years apart, through screenshots.

[Diablo 3] Elective Mode is a Mistake, Rohan, Blessing of Kings, 5/24/12

A discussion of Blizzard’s mistake of including the elective mode in Diablo 3.

On the Tyranny of Classes, Cynwise, Cynwise’s Warcraft Manual, 5/28/12

A comparison of characters in MMORPGs and characters in traditional RPGs, especially the fact that while a character’s class can change in many other RPGs, it’s the one unchanging aspect in most MMORPGs.

The Reality of Vanilla WoW, Matticus, World of Matticus, 5/29/12

Matticus takes off the rose-tinted glasses to look at vanilla WoW.

Now approaching two years of Real ID — did it work?, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 5/28/12

With Blizzard’s Real ID turning two, Stickney considers whether Real ID is a success and expresses her displeasure at the feature.

Dear Blizzard: A Modest Healing UI Request, Matticus, World of Matticus, 5/21/12

Matticus examines the default healing UI in WoW and suggests ways of incorporating absorbs.

Mists of Pandaria: Head enchants… gone! Shoulder enchants…, Adam Holisky, WoW Insider, 5/30/12 via a Ghostcrawler forum post

Head enchants are gone in Mists of Pandaria and shoulder enchants come from scribes. No more long reputation grinds for enchants!

Good Achievements, Bad Achievements

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 23, 2012
Posted in: Achievements, Achievements, Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Achievements offer the chance to look at content in different ways and track progress. Sometimes they’re boring, but often they’re quite fun. Boring achievements might track progress or simply track something that you were going to do anyways. However, fun achievements task you with going about something in a different way than you might have previously or acknowledge that you did something difficult.

World of Warcraft has some boring achievements – Level 10, Explore Durotar, Northern Barrens Quests, An Honorable Kill, etc. These are achievements that really don’t warrant a “grats” in guild chat. There are also some good achievements. Explore Kalimdor, Disgracin’ The Basin, and More Skills to Pay the Bills are a couple examples. There are also achievements that mean you did something very difficult like The Loremaster, 100000 Honorable Kills, Battlemaster, and The Light of Dawn. These are achievements that pretty much require a quick “grats.” Unexpected ones like Going Down? can be fun as can the Glory of the Hero and Glory of the Raider achievements that task you with doing special things during boss fights. Then, of course, there are Feats of Strength, which are not available to all players.

There needs to be a balance between these types of achievements. There should be far less of the boring achievements because they just clutter up the system. It’s nice to be able to check how progressed in the game someone is, and for people who aren’t at endgame, checking their level via achievements could work. However, many of these boring achievements are hardly achievements. They shouldn’t be taken out of the game, but they should be the minority. Achievements should track the cool things you did. They’re things to show off. Feats of Strength are a great aspect to the achievement system in Blizzard’s games. They’re something special even if they’re not particularly hard.

Right now, I see a lot of the boring achievements in Diablo III. This is likely because I’m just beginning. However, it just seems strange to see achievements pop up when I’ve yet to even complete Act I. Let’s be honest here; I haven’t really achieved much. Also, I don’t care when a friend gets an achievement that’s hardly an achievement. Maybe a single progression achievement for each difficulty would be better? That might be going too far. However, boss-by-boss seems a bit much.

I think a better system is to push the profile we see in Diablo III and on the Web for World of Warcraft. There only needs to be an achievement for everything if the achievements are the only way you show off your accomplishments. If they were just one part, along a raid progression graphic like the one above, some of the boring achievements don’t need to exist.

Another thing I’d love to see are custom achievements. The logistics are difficult, but what if they weren’t worth any points and were in their own section? Basically, a little notepad area that’s part of your profile. These could be used to track personal memories you’ve made in the game.

No Longer Languishing in Ulduar

Convinced Lang to go back to Ulduar since I never saw it!

Where’s the Flag?

Played in a Warsong Gulch match over 12 hours after the flag disappeared and never respawned!

Those would be two of mine!

BattleTags Do NOT Solve Real ID Issues

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 22, 2012
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

BattleTags are a great idea. Basically, using the BattleTag system is just like the Real ID system except it doesn’t use your account login. In other words, I can give someone my BattleTag, and we’ll have all the benefits of Real ID friends without me having to give out compromising information. Again, BattleTag friends will have all the benefits of Real ID friends. That includes being able to see each other’s online status across all Battle.net games. And that’s the part I still dislike.

I don’t always want to be connected. I know that’s strange in a world dominated by social media. (My profession is heavily dependent on social media even.) I like being connected, but I want a choice. I’d like to be able to sometimes go offline from the social system. I’m not asking to be invisible necessarily; I’m okay with temporarily losing the ability to see others as well.

Blizzard had a solution for this in World of Warcraft, and it’s been there since the beginning of WoW – character-level friends. I can be friends with someone on my character without being friends with them everywhere. While this wouldn’t solve when I want to be offline on a known character, it solves it partially. Unfortunately, Blizzard has decided not to include this functionality in Diablo III. If you want to play with someone easily or keep in touch with them in Diablo III, you have to give them the ability to see what you’re doing across all Battle.net games at all times.

I’ll repeat that: by adding a friend in Diablo III, you are inherently giving them the ability to see your online presence across all Battle.net games at all times without ever having the option to temporarily go offline.

What’s a World of Warcraft friend or StarCraft II friend?

A World of Warcraft or StarCraft II friend is any player you add to your friends list by their character name rather than through Real ID (or their BattleTag, in the future). If you add a character name to your friends list and are not Real ID or BattleTag friends with the player, you will not see the player’s real name in the game, nor will they see yours. Character-level friends such as these are specific to each game (i.e. World of Warcraft character friends cannot see each other in StarCraft II or Diablo III, nor can they communicate cross-game) and can see online and offline status information only, not rich presence details or Broadcast messages. Other characters that the player creates will not automatically be added to your friends list. Diablo III does not support character-level friendship, only BattleTag- or Real ID-based friendship.

via Real ID – Battle.net Support.

Yet another reason to continue to keep my distance from this system.

Initial Weekend with Diablo III

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 21, 2012
Posted in: Achievements, Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

On Saturday, gem and I started playing Diablo III. She was going to create a witch doctor but ended up rolling a monk.  I played a demon hunter in the beta, planned on playing a demon hunter, and, well, did play a demon hunter. So far we’re really enjoying the game. The story is much more intricate, and the skill system is different than both Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft. Currently we’re maybe halfway (or so?) through Act I. For those of you playing, we’ve fought the spider queen boss. The screenshot above was taken right after killing King Leoric.

I think the most important thing to consider is whether or not the game is fun, and it has been. I enjoy the visual style, which has a hand-painted look to it. Although different, it reminds me of the background of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Giving Town Portal as a spell that can be cast as often as needed is very cool change. Being able to identify items at will without using a scroll of identification (or something similar) is a cool change, but it makes me wonder why some items need to be identified at all. Is it because unidentified items can be sold (providing a sort of gamble)? I have no idea.

The skill system is odd. As you level, you unlock new skills and runes, which modify skills. Basically, talents and glyphs from World of Warcraft. However, you don’t really make permanent choices. You can make changes at any time with a short cooldown to prevent, I’m guessing, changing choices during combat. You have a maximum of six skills in use at a time once all slots are unlocked. I have some mixed feelings on the skill system, which I’ll talk about in another post.

There were some big improvements to the general social system. Achievements are a cool addition to the Diablo series. While a lot of them are boring, there are some fun ones. I haven’t actually counted or anything, but I hope there are a decent number of ones that are actually achievements. I like achievements that task you with performing a task a certain way as opposed to ones like “Reach Level 10.” Having achievements be account-based rather than character-based seems to work well. I’m sure it’ll be similar in Mists of Pandaria, so I’m glad to find that I’m happy with them. I do kind of wish that we’ll eventually be able to see achievements across games though. I’ve been meaning to post about achievements in general, which, who knows, maybe I’ll get around to doing. Battle Tags are an improvement over the Real ID system but are still fundamentally flawed. I actually have a post on this already written, and it’ll get posted soon. I like that in addition to large toasts acknowledging earned achievements for a player, there are now smaller toasts above the chat window for achievements earned by party members. Achievements are also broadcast to your friends now I believe, which is a cool addition.

While we’ve only played a rather small chunk of the game, I’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s interesting to see Blizzard’s knowledge from World of Warcraft added to the mix and bits and pieces of things to expect in Mists of Pandaria. I’m anxious to try hardcore mode, and I can’t wait to try PVP when they release it!

Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet – World of Warcraft

Posted by Peter (Devee) on October 11, 2011
Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Coming soon to a Pet Store near you: the new and titanically cute Guardian Cub companion. You’ve soared across Azeroth on the majestic Winged Guardian. Soon, youll be able to purchase a pint-sized Guardian of the Titans sidekick to accompany you on your adventures.

via Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet – World of Warcraft.

Well, this is interesting. Blah, blah, a new pet purchasable with USD. What’s interesting is that it’s not BoP. I wonder what the demand will be like for this in the game. If demand is high enough, will this be a way to effectively buy gold from Blizzard (after selling the pet on the Auction House? I’ve heard that some people are upset by this. I don’t really care, but I’ll take a look at the prices. It’ll probably not be worth it at all, but if it sold for enough gold, sure, I’d pick one up for $10 and sell it. It would have to be a lot of gold, and I doubt it will be, but it’s still interesting.