I’d just like to take a moment enthuse about a new podcast on the WoW blogging scene: Twisted Nether. It’s hosted by Fimlys of Asleep at the WoW, and Breana of Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick, and it focuses on news from the WoW-o-sphere and the WoW-blog-o-sphere. Fim and Bre are always worth listening to, and in combination they’ve produced a very enjoyable podcast. It’s four episodes in so far, and I’m looking forward to more.
Category Archives: Meta
Normal Service Has Resumed!
First of all, I’d like to apologise for my radio silence over the last, oh, month or two. My health yo-yoed quite a lot, which made it hard to keep up with WoW, let alone blogging – and, of course, once you’ve had a break it’s hard to know where to start again.
Anyway, I’m back now, so greetings to those of my readers who haven’t yet abandoned me, and thankyou to everyone who sent well-wishes and the like. :)
Coming up next: a series of checklists for instance quests, and then back to the paladin-fu!
Bump!
Major new content’s going to be a bit thin on the ground hereabouts for the next few days while I power through as much Shattered Sun content as possible.
However, my Guide to Shattered Sun Daily Quests is being regularly updated, so take a look there if you’re interested in the new content but you don’t know where to start – and if you’ve checked it out recently, come back again soon for more information.
Gold farming: illegal?
A recent conversation in Trade channel, transcribed verbatim:
Gold farmer: [insert gold seller spam here, including phrase “100% legal”]
Player A: I like that 100% legal bit, as it is 0% legal
Me: Actually, is it illegal? It’s against the EULA and the TOS, but they’re not laws
Player A: It is “illegal” as far as Blizzard is concerned
Me: That’s not the same as ‘illegal’ though
Player B: It is illegal as far as the courts are concerned too, as Blizzard won a ginormous suit against a “gold farming company” not too long ago
Player A: Semantics get you nowhere
Me: That’s a civil case. If it were illegal, it would have been prosecuted by the government (ie police/district attorney/whoever does that job in the jurisdiction in question)
Player C: Hey, lawyer boy. STFU
Me: Just curious – I see people say “it’s illegal” all the time; I just wondered if anyone had any evidence for it.
Player A: Defending gold farmers is epic fail
Me: I’m not defending them!
Player A: Everything we say pertains to the game. As far as the rules of the game go, it is “illegal”. You get banned for using the services
Player D: Illegal is the wrong word
Player A: Again, semantics get you nowhere. We know what we mean. You know what we mean.
Me: Pardon me for wanting to use the correct words for things.
Player E: Its in the EULA, its violates the terms of the game… which is also bound by a court ruling
Me: Show me a law against gold farming, selling or buying
Player E: Also high chance the gold they sell is stolen from a hacked account. Trafficing in Stolen Goods… Hows that one
Player A: Which is theft of intellectual property. Which is, in fact, illegal
I should have known better than to expect critical thinking from the denizens of the Trade channel – however, I’m curious. Is gold selling actually illegal, in any jurisdiction? Or is it merely a violation of the TOS/TOU/EULA and therefore purely a civil matter? Any lawyers in the audience able to help me out?
(Note that I am not, as some genius in Trade channel suggested, supporting the Real Money Transfer industry; I’m merely curious about the actual legality of it.)
WoW Character Watch
I’ve got a big post half-written at the moment, but I’ll interrupt that to make a quick website recommendation:
WoW Character Watch, a website developed and offered by Alinden of Moar HP Than Jesus, provides a handy service for anyone interested in keeping track of their friends, enemies, and anyone else. (The tagline is “We watch so you don’t have to.”)
Sign up at the site and you can create a Watch List; every 24 hours, WCW checks the Armory for changes to characters on your watch list. It reports changes in gear, skill levels, character level and guild. Keep track of your friends’ progress; keep an eye on that troublemaker ex-guildie!
Just a note; it’s currently in beta so there may be a few kinks. A contact form will be up within 24 hours; in the meantime, if you have any problems, head over to Alinden’s blog and report them there.
Also note that I believe it’s limited to the US Armory at present, although EU functionality will be added shortly.
Edit: The Armory may be blocking it at present; a few people have reported issues with not being able to look up their characters. If you suffer that, leave a comment here and I’ll make sure the dev sees it.
Edit 2: It should now be working fine again, and EU support has been added.
PTR For Me!
Thankfully, after the most recent patch, the PTR is playable again – with all mods loaded and graphic effects at maximum, the framerate is still decent.
Unfortunately, I missed a lot of the Shattered Sun daily content; all the phases are now open. I’ll still do an overall guide to the SSO dailies, and I hope to have it ready for 2.4’s release, but it’ll take a bit more research than just logging onto the PTR and reading the quest text. So, expect the 2.4 updates to be a bit sparser from now on, as all the dynamic content finished up while the PTR was still unplayable for me.
A shame – but I sitll have it to look forward to on live.
No PTR For Me!
Unfortunately I won’t be providing any PTR-related content for a while, as the biggish PTR patch last week rendered 2.4 unplayable for me – I get 5 FPS or less in almost all areas, and the towns are particularly horrific.
I’m hoping this clears up before 2.4 goes live, but in the meantime I can’t provide much more in the way of a Patch 2.4 Preview, apart from what I can research on other sites. Apologies!
Say No to Nerfs!
Leafy of Leafshine: Lust for Flower has created a “Don’t Nerf Druids!” campaign that I’m proud to support:
I know this is a cute cause, but I really do believe that the lifebloom nerf is a bad idea. It sets resto druids back months in their PvE gearing for no apparent reason other than the mythical goal of PvP balance (which is never going to happen until everyone in PvP plays the same class, with the same talent spec, nude).
Blizzard! Don’t nerf trees!
2.4 Content: Coming Soon to a Blog Near You
As I did with 2.3, I’ll be checking out 2.4 on the PTR and reporting back on the items of interest I usually talk about here – I’ll be adding more to my Guide to Daily Quests, for starters, and looking at the five new gems in 2.4.
If you’re interested in checking out 2.4 content for yourself:
- MMO Champion always has good news coverage
- Elitist Jerks discusses 2.4 changes here
- The Mac & PC clients are up for download (although the US PTRs won’t go live til after the weekend)
- The latest PTR patch notes are always here.
Wrong continent, dammit!
Blizzard is advertising for fiction writers. I meet all of their requirements and their pluses… and it’s an onsite job in California.
Sadpanda.