Even More Blizzard Store Items Incoming

A couple weeks ago in a post I talked about the up and coming Winged Lion mount that will be available for purchase with real money from the Blizzard store in 4.1. With the incredible amount of cash they made from the Celestial Steed I definitely saw this coming. However, now it seems that Blizzard is ramping up production of premium content, which to me is disturbing; it indicates the slippery slope effect. Here are the next two "mounts" that will be available from the store along with the lion:

You can individually purchase the wings for $19.99 or buy both of them for $29.99. To me this illustrates a disturbing trend. First Blizzard had a few in game pets that could be purchased, then one mount. Now it's a whole set of mounts along with the continued production of pets. I do not feel that in a subscription based game that development time should be spent on premium content, especially this amount of premium content. In the end Blizzard is a business and this kind of thing makes them money so they will continue with it and I don't blame them, expect to see a lot more of premium content in the future.

As an extra mmo-champion has a video up of the lion mount so here it is, no videos yet of the wings.

Starcraft....On Kinect!

In a revolutionary post today Blizzard announced their intent to return to the world of consoles! The once PC only developer will now be taking the step to consoles with an Xbox 360 version of Starcraft played with Kinect! Here is an excerpt from Blizzard's article.

"Combining advanced body tracking hardware of modern consoles with the exciting strategy gameplay of StarCraft II, StarCraft: Motion Overdrive will allow you to experience StarCraft like never before. Use gesture-based controls to direct your forces and out-move your enemies. Challenge your friends in intense multi-actor matches either locally via split screen or online. Wave your arms in the air like you do, in fact, care."

 

They also created an epic trailer depicting the intense action' it also relays the fact that, as always, Koreans will dominate every game they play!

Disclaimer: Before having either a nerdgasm or an intense fit of nerd rage please observe today's date and Blizzard's history of announcements on said date. 

Jinx Aquires Minecraft License!

Recently Jinx.com, a supplier of gamer and geek clothing items, launched a set of officially licensed Minecraft shirts and announced their plans to continue the creation of Minecraft merchandise. As far as I'm aware this is the first officially licensed by Notch Minecraft clothing which indicates a big step for the game. It means Notch is looking to expand Minecraft and make even more money off of it which in the end is good for us! The more money Minecraft makes the more effort Notch can / will put into it's development, at least I hope.

So those of you that are willing to express your inner geek and/or love of Minecraft in public rejoice! The rest of you just be glad that Notch is doing well, he deserves it for creating such a great game. Jinx even has an offer going right now where if you buy three or more shirts you get $5 off each, which makes it about $15 a shirt. Jinx is a great company and I'm glad that they are the ones that got the Minecraft license.

My personal favorite of the shirts that I will probably pick up is the creeper one.

Krazy_Kow's Floating Citadel

On my Minecraft server Krazy_Kow built himself a huge floating netherrock citadel with the assistance of me and Chris, so here is a look at this massive floating structure.

The Daily Blink's Updated Guild Finder Tool!

In 4.1 Blizzard is introducing their own looking for guild tool to help players find guilds, however, as you can see it is very lacking which may prove problematic:

Let's face it, Blizzard's tool is pathetic and no serious guilds will use it; so our friends at The Daily Blink have finished the guild finder for Blizz and posted a screenshot of their, far superior, guild finder tool!

As a raider that has experienced many different guilds I must say that this tool is fairly accurate and Blizzard should implement it immediately!

Awesome Valor Point Changes Incoming In WoW

In the upcoming 4.1 patch the valor point system will be receiving a very nice change. Currently, players receive 70 points for completing the first random heroic five man dungeon they do in a day; this means that a player must log in everyday and do a heroic if they wish to acquire the maximum amount of points to buy gear with. This can be quite a pain because some days I, and many others, just don't have any time to play. Anybody like that will be delighted with the upcoming changes!

In 4.1 players will receive 70 valor points for the first seven heroics they complete each week. This means that if you have a ton of time to play one day you could quite possibly get a guild group together, blaze through some heroics, and be done for the rest of the week! This is a great change that allows players more freedom of choice. For me this is especially good as some days I just don't feel like playing WoW but I feel I must in order to not fall behind in the gear race.

Creepy tiki mask in the revamped Zul'Gurub

In addition to this change Blizzard announced something pretty interesting; the new heroics, revamped Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman, will be considered tier 2 heroics. Not only do they drop better gear but completing them rewards 140 valor points, double that of tier 1 heroics. This means that if a player runs ZG and ZA seven times a weak they can get a maximum of 980 valor points in a week! This doesn't "stack" with tier 1 heroics though, players can only receive valors from seven heroics in a week.

Be prepared to fight this guy, over and over and over.

My only concern here, besides the whole raid level gear being more easily accessible from 5 mans problem, is that currently there are only two "tier 2" heroics, ZA and ZG. This means that players wanting the maximum valor points will be doing these two over and over and over with no variety. Hopefully in 4.2 more tier two dungeons will be added to ease the monotony a bit.

Minecraft Clay Making Machine

Something you could build with all that clay.

I had a few people asked me about the clay maker mentioned in a previous post so here is a quick guide on how to make one. Here is what it looks like, it's a very simple design.

Place the water spring in the back so it flows towards you, the pressure plates in the front are there to stop the water from advancing any further. To use it place a gravel block directly in front of the pressure plate, it will touch the water and turn to clay instantly.

Now stand on the pressure plate and destroy the clay block, the water current will push the clay into you to be collected! Now rinse and repeat and you can turn all of your gravel into clay!

This machine is very useful as it turns plentiful and nearly useless gravel into clay which can be used to make brick. I also like it's very simple design that requires few materials.