Mists of Pandaria Archaeology All Items

My most viewed post by a huge margin was my listing of the original archaeology rare items in World of Warcraft. The list of all items is #6. One of the first things I did when I started playing again was go out and start digging and I found out there were some new things added to the game over the course of Cataclysm. Of course there are also two entirely new factions to dig up in Mists of Pandaria! I went looking for a list of the new items from patches and a list of new items in MoP and, just like when Cata came out, couldn't find one. So I'm building one myself! Hopefully random people on the internet find these lists as useful as the first set. They've also really ramped up the vendor values of items so I'm going to include that information as well this time around.

It looks like the two new races (Mogu and Pandaren) don't really have junk items per se. It sounds like they're all quest items you turn in at a new faction for a chance at a good reward? There are certainly lots of achievements for restoring many copies of the 'junk' items. It also doesn't look like there are any new epics which is probably a good thing. I spent way too much time trying to get a Zin'rokh at Cata launch without succeeding. Also it looks like you can convert Mogu/Pandaren junk items into arch fragments from any earlier race so you can complete all the old stuff without having to fly around the old zones. Maybe I'll get that Zin'rokh after all...

Draenei

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Anklet with Golden Bells	Junk	50g	45
Arrival of the Naaru	Vanity		124
Baroque Sword Scabbard	Junk	10g	46
Carved Harp of Exotic Wood	Junk	10g	45
Dignified Portrait	Junk	10g	45
Fine Crystal Candelabra	Junk	50g	44
Plated Elekk Goad	Junk	10g	45
Scepter of the Nathrezim	Junk	10g	46
Strange Silver Paperweight	Junk	10g	46
The Last Relic of Argus	Vanity		130

Dwarf

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Belt Buckle with Anvilmar Crest	Junk	1g	34
Bodacious Door Knocker	Junk	5g	35
Bone Gaming Dice	Junk	1g	32
Boot Heel with Scrollwork	Junk	5g	34
Ceramic Funeral Urn	Junk	1g	35
Chalice of the Mountain Kings	Vanity		100
Clockwork Gnome	Pet		100
Dented Shield of Horuz Killcrow	Junk	10g	35
Dwarven Baby Socks	Junk	1g	30
Golden Chamber Pot	Junk	5g	35
Ironstar's Petrified Shield	Junk	5g	36
Mithril Chain of Angerforge	Junk	10g	35
Moltenfist's Jeweled Goblet	Junk	1g	34
Notched Sword of Tunadil the Redeemer	Junk	5g	35
Pewter Drinking Cup	Junk	1g	35
Pipe of Franclorn Forgewright	Junk	20g	45
Scepter of Bronzebeard	Junk	20g	45
Scepter of Charlga Razorflank	Junk	10g	35
Scorched Staff of Shadow Priest Anund	Junk	10g	35
Silver Kris of Korl	Junk	20g	45
Silver Neck Torc	Junk	1g	34
Skull Staff of Shadowforge	Junk	10g	35
Spiked Gauntlets of Anvilrage	Junk	20g	45
Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissian	85 Epic		150
Stone Gryphon	Junk	1g	35
The Innkeeper's Daughter	Vanity		150
Warmaul of Burningeye	Junk	20g	45
Winged Helm of the Corehammer	Junk	5g	35
Wooden Whistle	Junk	1g	28
Word of Empress Zoe	Junk	375g	45
Worn Hunting Knife	Junk	1g	30

Fossil

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Ancient Amber *NEW*	Vanity		100
Ancient Shark Jaws	Junk	5g	35
Beautiful Preserved Fern	Junk	1g	25
Black Trilobite	Junk	1g	31
Devilsaur Tooth	Junk	5g	35
Extinct Turtle Shell *NEW*	85 Epic		150
Feathered Raptor Arm	Junk	10g	33
Fossilized Hatchling	Pet		85
Fossilized Raptor	Mount		100
Imprint of a Kraken Tentacle	Junk	200g	45
Insect in Amber	Junk	5g	35
Proto-Drake Skeleton	Junk	20g	45
Pterrordax Hatchling *NEW*	Pet		120
Shard of Petrified Wood	Junk	1g	30
Strange Velvet Worm	Junk	1g	35
Twisted Ammonite Shell	Junk	1g	35
Vicious Ancient Fish	Junk	10g	35

Mogu

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Anatomical Dummy *NEW*	Vanity		180
Cracked Mogu Runestone *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Edicts of the Thunder King *NEW*	Junk	1g	60
Iron Amulet *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Manacles of the Rebellion *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Mogu Coin *NEW*	Junk	1g	30
Quillen Statuette *NEW*	BoA Gear		180
Petrified Bone Whip *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Terracotta Arm *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Thunder King Insignia *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Warlord's Branding Iron *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Worn Monument Ledger *NEW*	Junk	1g	50

Nerubian

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Blessing of the Old God	Vanity		140
Ewer of Jurmungar Blood	Junk	10g	45
Gruesome Heart Box	Junk	7g	45
Infested Ruby Ring	Junk	20g	45
Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron	Vanity		140
Scepter of Nezar'Azret	Junk	50g	45
Six-Clawed Cornice	Junk	20g	45
Spidery Sundial	Junk	10g	45
Vizier's Scrawled Streamer	Junk	10g	45

Night Elf

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Bones of Transformation	Vanity		150
Carcanet of the Hundred Magi	Junk	20g	45
Chest of Tiny Glass Animals	Junk	100g	34
Cloak Clasp with Antlers	Junk	3g	35
Coin from Eldre'Thalas	Junk	2g	35
Cracked Crystal Vial	Junk	5g	35
Delicate Music Box	Junk	5g	35
Druid and Priest Statue Set	Vanity		100
Green Dragon Ring	Junk	2g	35
Hairpin of Silver and Malachite	Junk	5g	35
Highborne Pyxis	Junk	1g	30
Highborne Soul Mirror	Vanity		100
Inlaid Ivory Comb	Junk	1g	30
Kaldorei Amphora	Junk	5g	35
Kaldorei Wind Chimes	Vanity		98
Necklace with Elune Pendant	Junk	1g	30
Queen Azshara's Dressing Gown	BoA Gear		100
Scandalous Silk Nightgown	Junk	1g	30
Scepter of Xavius	Junk	10g	35
Shattered Glaive	Junk	2g	35
Silver Scroll Case	Junk	200g	45
String of Small Pink Pearls	Junk	10g	35
Tyrande's Favorite Doll	85 Epic		150
Umbra Crescent	Junk	20g	45
Wisp Amulet	Vanity		150

Orc

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Fiendish Whip	Junk	10g	45
Fierce Wolf Figurine	Junk	10g	45
Gray Candle Stud	Junk	5g	45
Headdress of the First Shaman	BoA Gear		130
Maul of Stone Guard Mur'og	Junk	50g	45
Rusted Steak Knife	Junk	1g	45
Scepter of Nekros Skullcrusher	Junk	80g	45
Skull Drinking Cup	Junk	5g	45
Tile of Glazed Clay	Junk	5g	45
Tiny Bronze Scorpion	Junk	25g	45

Pandaren

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Apothecary Tins *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Carved Bronze Mirror *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Empty Keg of Brewfather Xin Wo Yin *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Gold-Inlaid Porcelain Funerary Figurine *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Pandaren Game Board *NEW*	Junk	1g	40
Pandaren Tea Set *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Pearl of Yu'lon *NEW*	Junk	1g	60
Spear of Xuen *NEW*	BoA Gear		180
Standard of Niuzao *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Twin Stein Set of Brewfather Quan Tou Kuo *NEW*	Junk	1g	50
Umbrella of Chi-Ji *NEW*	BoA Gear		180
Walking Cane of Brewfather Ren Yun *NEW*	Junk	1g	50

Tol'Vir

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Canopic Jar	Alchemy Recipe		45
Castle of Sand	Junk	10g	45
Cat Statue with Emerald Eyes	Junk	100g	45
Crawling Claw	Pet		150
Engraved Scimitar Hilt	Junk	10g	45
Pendant of the Scarab Storm	Vanity		150
Ring of the Boy Emperor	85 Epic		150
Scepter of Azj'Aqir	Mount		150
Scimitar of the Sirocco	85 Epic		150
Sketch of a Desert Palace	Junk	10g	45
Soapstone Scarab Necklace	Junk	10g	45
Staff of Ammunae	85 Epic		150
Tiny Oasis Mosaic	Junk	15g	45

Troll

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Atal'ai Scepter	Junk	5g	35
Bracelet of Jade and Coins	Junk	25g	35
Cinnabar Bijou	Junk	5g	35
Drakkari Sacrificial Knife	Junk	10g	35
Eerie Smolderthorn Idol	Junk	5g	35
Feathered Gold Earring	Junk	5g	34
Fetish of Hir'eek	Junk	1g	30
Fine Bloodscalp Dinnerware	Junk	1g	32
Gahz'rilla Figurine	Junk	5g	35
Haunted Ward Drum *NEW*	Vanity		100
Jade Asp with Ruby Eyes	Junk	5g	35
Lizard Foot Charm	Junk	1g	32
Skull-Shaped Planter	Junk	5g	35
Tooth with Gold Filling	Junk	50g	35
Voodoo Figurine *NEW*	Pet		100
Zandalari Voodoo Doll	Junk	1g	27
Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds	85 Epic		150

Vrykul

Item	Type	Value	Fragments
Fanged Cloak Pin	Junk	20g	45
Flint Striker	Junk	5g	45
Intricate Treasure Chest Key	Junk	50g	45
Nifflevar Bearded Axe	BoA Gear		130
Scramseax	Junk	10g	45
Thorned Necklace	Junk	10g	45
Vrykyl Drinking Horn *NEW*	Vanity		100

It's Good To Be The King

A little over 7 months ago Blizzard implemented a new feature making it very easy for an absent guild leader to get deposed. If the guild leader hadn't logged on in a month then anyone of the highest rank which had logged in within that month would get a button they could press to become the new guild leader. I thought this was a terrible feature at the time, Sky thought it was fine. My concern when it came to Ogg Gulnath Tago was that there wasn't a good reason for anyone to want to take it over since we were completely defunct. Missing the guild leader wasn't inconveniencing anyone since practically everyone had quit! What it would do is potentially allow someone to walk off with all the stuff in the guild bank or to sell off our reputation. (Vek'Nilash is a small and terrible server but at one point we were the top raiding guild and at another point we were one of the top 10-man strict guilds in the world.) Plus the name is awesome.

I don't know how many people did make use of it but I know at least a couple did. I have no clue what used to be in the guild bank but it's still chock full of junk and has a small fortune (almost as much as my account has) so I don't think anyone did anything untoward with it when they were guild leader. Of course the first thing I did when I logged on was push the button myself. Mwahaha! Bow before me, puny mortals!

Of course, now that I am guild leader I don't have a clue what to do. The guild bank is full of stuff that was of questionable usefulness back at Cata launch. I can't imagine much of has any value now. What am I supposed to do with more than a thousand cups of coffee? Stacks of soon to be obsolete enchant scrolls? I don't even know what I could possibly spend my own 270k on, what would I do with an extra 250k from the guild bank? I'm thinking I should give my AH mod a few days to get a rough idea of item valuations and then sell everything I can possibly get money for.

One thing I can do is turn the guild tabard pink! Next time Recolada gets back to Stormwind I'm going to make that happen.

Then there's all sorts of roster related things to do... I doubt we'll be raiding in MoP so do we still want or need 'raider' related ranks? Should people get booted? (I really don't think anyone should get junked until after Mists comes out in case people reactivate for it for sure.) Should we actively recruit new people? Should we be willing to recruit people who independently want to join?

World of Warcraft: Making Moneys

One of the things I left behind when I stopped playing World of Warcraft was three alts filled with every glyph in the game. I used to use a series of add-ons to track how many of each I had and to sell them quickly and automatically for the right price based on the current items up for sale. If things got too cheap it just wouldn't list them. I made a small fortune this way back in the day (smaller than I thought, though... I seem to be missing some money or I'm misremembering what I had...) and figured I should get that engine rolling again.

A new expansion patch comes with is LUA changes which destroy existing mods at the best of times. When you haven't played in an year and a half and are on a new computer all bets are off. I tried to find the mods I used to use and they were all out of date. Then it turns out they'd pretty much all been combined/replaced by a single collection of mods: TradeSkillMaster! Apparently at one point Blizzard opened up the auction house UI to the general public (likely because of the mobile phone app) so you don't even need to waster time scanning the AH anymore. You can run an external program to download and parse the file and store it where TSM can pick it up. It seems to have broken in the patch but they claim to be fixing it. I think it sounds pretty sweet.

At any rate I finally got all my stuff configured and started posting glyphs on one of my alts. I hadn't even finished posting them all when one sold for 140G. I don't know if this is a good price or not but since all these things are just laying around I figure it has to be worth liquidating at this point, right?

They've added some new glyphs to the trainer (including a bunch of monk ones) so I figured I should get milling and make them so I have a full stock. And maybe in doing so I'd learn a bit about the actual cost of these things so I can tweak my values. I went to the ink vendor and it turns out the conversion is now solely with the new Mists ink. Which you can't get for a month. Which means I need to buy all the different types of herbs... I must say, it's tempting to level a new character with herbalism to deal with this sudden need.

Anyway, I'm going to spend a couple days getting this money engine back up and running properly and then look towards seeing what might be worth buying and/or selling in the next month to deal with Mists launching.

World of Warcraft Patch Thoughts

The huge World of Warcraft patch getting ready for Mists of Pandaria came out today and I couldn't wait to log in when I got home. It turned out the servers were still down and the client wanted to take some time to optimize the install on my system. Ok, fair enough. By the time the optimization had finished the servers were up and I jumped on to take a look at all my new achievement points...

I didn't have any new ones at all. Huh. What's going on? I looked around through the achievements and saw some account-wide ones but they were all things I knew I'd done on Recolada. I went to look for one I knew I'd done on Rhododendron but not on Recolada: fish up Old Crafty. Not there. *frowns*

I decided to log on and look at Rhododendron's list to see if it was still there. When I popped open her achievement window I noticed she had about 300 more achievement points than I'd just had on Recolada. I'd also noticed when I'd logged onto Recolada I got spammed with all my pets getting converted into the combat pet system but when I logged onto Rhododendron I only got 3 new pets. Maybe you need to log in to each character to sync up the system?

Back to Recolada where I found the following:

Sweet! It's nice to be able to see who earned the achievement and if I could still get toasted for it on Recolada or not. There isn't currently a filter for 'earned but not on this character' but I can only hope one will be added at some point. I guess it's time to log into every character on my account in the hopes of getting some more achievement points!

The patch also included an intro movie for Mists of Pandaria which I thought was awesome. It isn't as grandiose as Illidan's video for The Burning Crusade but I liked it regardless. I particularly like when the third character adjusts a statue thing to be perfectly straight. Go OCD!

There's a very convenient and not at all blatant 'buy Mists of Pandaria' button on the character select screen. Goodbye, retailers!

Singing Sunflower is a valid pet battle pet! This makes me happy and I hope people are ready for mad flower beats. Apparently she's an elemental which makes her weak to water and strong against machines. I believe you get to build a team of 3 pets so I guess I'll need to find someone strong against water to protect her. This looks to be flyers. Like the Westfall Chicken! BuCAW!

Archaeology also seems to have been buffed. I got 45 fragments total from one dig site. I think on launch you would get 9? I'm going to have to look into this further...

I did not get my merciless nether drake to carry over to my DK. My warrior can use 'the Insane' title though, so that's something!

You do have an 11th character slot now.

All in all it looks pretty sweet. All the spells and stuff have changed a lot since yesterday and even more in the year and a half since I last played. I'm almost tempted to start a new character just to get a handle on how things play now...

MLG Controversy

The MLG Summer Championships were held over last weekend. I watched a lot of the games live but ended up playing in the Go4LoL cup thing during the start of the League of Legends finals. At one point I popped the stream back open to catch a glimpse of what was going on (we had a first round bye and then promptly got stomped by a cheating 2200 team) and was shocked to discover that there were something like 31 kills in the first 8 minutes of the game. This is really surprising because I feel one of the things that really distinguishes top tier play is knowing when to engage and when to run. I constantly see top players escaping with a sliver of health or preemptively running from a bad situation where my team would engage to death or not run in time and die. 31 kills is insane. Heck, we only died 34 times in 22 minutes in our cup game!

I mentioned this on Skype and Kevin went to check the game out. His immediate reaction was the game was an ARAM and not a normal game. For those who may not know, ARAM stands for All Random All Middle which is a style of game where everyone takes a random champion and runs to the middle lane. You can't go back to base to shop or heal unless you die. It's an interesting variant and I've played it a few times. But it's not the actual game. A couple arenas ago the StarCraft II guys played a 2v2 tournament which was interesting. But they tacked it on as an added bonus; they didn't replace actual games that people were paying for. I would be in favour of them running an ARAM side event at some point. I'd find that amusing. But replacing one of the games in a final? Pretty sketchy. MLG makes the finals a best 3 of 5 for a reason... The fans want to watch a lot of quality games between the best teams. Throwing one of those games away sucks.

It would be like if the Penguins and Capitals were playing hockey and decided to replace the first period with a series of Crosby and Ovechkin breakaways. Some people would find that interesting (just look at the All-Star game) but the people who paid to get in to the game expecting to watch hockey would be in for a real shock. As someone who does pay a fair bit to watch LoL online I'm pretty bitter that they screwed around with an ARAM in the finals.

Now long after the finals finished MLG released a statement stating they'd disqualified Curse and Diginitas (the two teams in the finals) for breaking a rule about forfeiting matches/colluding to alter the outcome of a game. Eventually more details came out and it actually wasn't because of the ARAM. They got some sort of warning for the ARAM but it wasn't worth a $32k penalty. It turns out they got disqualified for being very public about agreeing to a prize split. With nothing on the line the teams were free to screw around which resulted in the ARAM. The difference between first and second place was supposed to be $8k which should be enough incentive to actually try to win. Remove that incentive and MLG feels the games get screwy and the viewers fail to get their money's worth. Apparently MLG disqualified some Smash Bros players for a similiar thing a while ago? So it's not like this is something new. MLG is against match fixing and they view prize splits as being part of match fixing.

Personally I think if eSports wants to be taken seriously this is a good stance to take. You wouldn't see the Canucks and Bruins agreeing to just be friends and share the Stanley Cup. I seem to recall prize splits happening all the time in Magic and poker so I am surprised to find MLG taking this stance. It's always just been something that happens.

World of Warcraft Patch 5.0.4

A short time before a World of Warcraft expansion hits they release a major patch to the servers which includes most of the infrastructure changes for the expansion. I really like this idea because people playing the game seriously tend to have wound down by this point so it lets them 'test' the infrastructure changes in a large but non-critical environment. This likely contributes a lot to their actual expansion launches being so smooth. These patches also tend to be an exciting time for current players since they get to play around with the new changes and Blizzard also tends to throw a major world event in at some point. (Sometimes these events are terrible like when players turned into zombies are got to PvP each other in capitals but they're still exciting I guess.)

Yesterday I tried to get a scroll of resurrection from my old high school friend Bubba but it turns out when I took a free week back in March in order to play ironman mode I made myself ineligible. You need to be inactive since at least March 5th and I'd played that first week of March. Oh well. I wasn't planning on using the free server transfer anyway so mostly I just lose a free level 80 character and Bubba loses a mount. I wanted to get a free level 80 mage in case we needed one for challenge dungeons but it's not actually a big deal I don't think. But if anyone else does want a scroll let me know; I am planning on reactivating sometime this weekend.

The new patch will hit the servers on Tuesday. Interestingly Blizzard has put all of the current expansions on massive sale until the end of the day Monday. $20 instead of $80 and I would imagine it comes with a free month? Works with recruit a friend... 

So, what infrastructure changes are the making for this patch? I haven't played in a year so some of these changes are modifying things I never used but it seems like a pretty extensive and awesome list. In particular:

- They're killing talent trees. Now at 6 points in time you get to choose one option from a list of 3. Not having trees at all makes me a little sad but I understand that trees didn't actually give many options despite having lots of things to click on. I'm tentatively excited about this.

- All the classes are seeing major changes. Hunters have no dead zone, for example, and can shoot in melee range. Guns are actually becoming 'melee' weapons since they're removing the ranged slot entirely. Shaman totems will no longer be passive buffs and will have short term interesting effects. Feral druids are getting split in two and druids are going to have 4 specs instead of 3 like everyone else. Warriors are seeing major rage changes. Rogue poisons are being split into two groups and you get one of each so you no longer have to choose between doing more damage or slowing the enemy. Long warlock cooldowns will get reset on boss wipe which is awesome. I hope that will apply to other classes like the DK Army of the Dead.

- Glyphs are getting changes again. I wonder if this will create a money making opportunity...

- AoE looting! If there was one thing I really liked about Star Wars: The Old Republic it was AoE looting. Blizzard has stolen it and that's fantastic!

- Lots of stuff is going account wide. In particular, achievements and mounts! Unfortunately I think my gladiator mount isn't getting this treatment which makes me sad since I'm unlikely to really play my warrior.

- PvP stat changes which may or may not make gearing for PvP make more sense.

- Head enchants are going away. I think there will still be reputations to grind up but you won't need to get specific ones first for head enchants. 

It doesn't sound like pet battles are coming in until the actual expansion. Pandas, monks, the higher level cap, and the new zones are also delayed. That makes sense. But there is enough new stuff to toy around with that I think it makes sense to poke around now. Maybe after MLG ends for the night...

MLG Summer Championship

This weekend brings the return of a couple recurring events in my life... Fan eXpo is this weekend in downtown Toronto and the MLG season championship is being held in Raleigh (but is being streamed online so I can watch it in the comfort of my home). Having them both happen at the same time is a little annoying because realistically I can only be involved with one of them. There are pros and cons each way but I can't lie... A deciding factor for which I'm going to do is the need to put on pants. It also doesn't help that Fan eXpo is so soon after WBC and I'm still a little people'd out. And I don't have a free pass this year while I do have access to MLG.

League of Legends is being featured once again which makes me happy. StarCraft II is as well, and Day[9] will be casting, which makes me happy. I hope MarineKing shows up this time! Still no first person shooter event which is a little surprising but I don't really care all that much. Only two fighting games instead of three. I wonder what King of Fighters did to warrant exclusion this time around. I may flip over to the fighters at some point over the weekend but my main focus is certainly going to be LoL and then SC2.

Apparently they're giving away some HD streams as a bit of a preshow starting at 1:30pm on Friday. It may be worth checking out? All weekend most of the streams will be free in standard definition as well. Don't miss out!

Paying for Betas

I feel like I've ranted about this before in the past but it's time to rant again. I don't buy all that many new games and it really feels like most of the big name games I've bought recently haven't been finished products. They tend to receive major changes in terms of balance or game-play relatively shortly after release. Mostly it feels like game companies have decided to sell beta copies of their games with the intention of maybe iterating to a release version at some point after having the masses play their game for a while. Star Trek Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Magic Online v2, Diablo III, and even Civ V had major revamp patches after I'd paid full price on release to play. Some of these games didn't even work at all on launch. I don't think FFXIV has yet recovered from its disastrous launch two years ago.

I honestly think StarCraft II was the only PC game I've bought in a long time that was an actual finished game on launch. But then it was actually in a fully functional beta for more than 5 months. It had a competitive eSports circuit with big prizes running during the beta itself. Blizzard wanted to make sure they had a game capable of standing up to the test of the eSports circuit so they put in the time and effort to release an actual finished game. They've continued to make changes to be sure but I don't think anyone could tell you with a straight face that the game at launch wasn't a finished product.

It really makes me question why I keep buying new games right away. I think I'd have enjoyed Diablo III more if I'd waited to start playing it until yesterday instead of diving in head first at launch. I thought Blizzard cared enough to pull it off but I guess without the risk of alienating the Korean gamer community they didn't feel the need to do rigorous testing. That the inferno setup has changed so much is a travesty. Never mind that the game is still missing huge key features like PvP and personal chat rooms.

I know Drew is planning on playing Guild Wars 2 when it launches this week. I'm expecting a recruiting message from Darque and/or Lythe soon as well. I no longer have any confidence that they'll be selling an actual game at launch and my desire to wade into untested waters filled with server crashes, bugs, and missing features is not very high at all. I'm going to have to put my foot down I think and resist the urge to play. Frankly with all the existing games that I know work (like the entire SNES library, old Final Fantasy games, and online board games) I don't really see any need for a new and likely buggy game.

Now, there have actually been 3 games I've bought in the last few years which felt like actual products. They weren't really games per se, but they were major content expansions to an existing game. The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm. They all had some bugs and all underwent many balance changes but they all felt like finished games. I may not have agreed with all their design decisions each time but it was clear they were decisions made for the good of the game and not to push the product out the door faster. I think that's because they all had the existing World of Warcraft framework to build off of. There was no chance of an important feature getting cut before launch because the important features were already in the core game. It's a lot easier to grow an existing framework than to build a new one and the WoW expansions are all growing from a solid game. Maybe that's why I'm so looking forward to Mists of Pandaria. I feel like I can count on some new content in a format I like with no fear of massive server instabilities or mind boggling missing features.