MaxBlissLog

All of Great-father Winter’s children over level 10 (rough estimate: 8 million players) got a Clockwork Rocket Bot this winter. This Bot has one and only one Rule of Robot’s Orders: Kill all other Clockwork Bots!! Kill on sight!

1. If you are standing still and some other bot generates nearby, you will EXTERMINATE that bot in a flurry of fireballs.
2. If you both generate at about the same time you will mutually self-destruct in 85% of the time.
3. To gain the upper robotic hand, you must run away, find someplace safe to generate and then SNEAK up on other bots to EXTERMINATE them with FIREBALLS.
4. Rule Number 4: If there are three bots active, all the above rules are declared null and FIRE BALLED!

Imagine: Teams of Bots!

If you are in a team, your Clockworks are in a team. They can be buffed. Yes, we are talking Power Word: Fortitude, Power Word: Shield, the whole twinkalicious spectrum.

According to WoWWiki:

This pet can be buffed, “healed” and otherwise have beneficial spells cast on it like a party member. Rocket Bots have a very small amount of health, however, and very nearly all attacks from other Rocket Bots will kill it outright. Due to it being considered a party member, Power Word: Shield can be cast on the robot, allowing it to survive several simultaneous attacks before falling over. The attack that breaks through the shield can, at times, be reduced enough to damage the bot without destroying it, showing that the bots do in fact have more than one hit point, and that rocket attacks do a small amount of damage rather than being a scripted ‘auto-kill’ attack.

So naturally I am seeing that team totem buffs apply. Pally buffs. How long can you keep a pet with 5 hp alive?

Because then we can talk about raid-sized teams of Clockwork Zombies advancing on Brill or Ratchet.

Nerf Alert! As of Jan. 2, my priest can no longer buff his bot. Dreams of world domination dwindle.

Look! This blog was picked up by WoW Insider today!

Wondering why Blizzard would stealth nerf Great-father Winter’s gift, several commenters suggested that it was because bots were targetable in PvP Arena and this messed up combat there. Bots remain targetable, just not buffable.

So perhaps the whole team-buffable thing was a mistake?

Personally, as an engineer who has been suckered into building rock em sock em robots, the clockwork bots were a huge improvement. First because more people have them. Second because they had better special FX as they destroyed each other.

Furthermore, dear Blizzard, the social aspect of buffable bots with team based combat running rampant in the Auction House was a breath of fresh air and fair commentary on how PvP can make or break a game.

We can only hope that, just as Blizzard stealth nerfed our beloved bots on Jan. 2, they will see right to restore bot buffability on the surprise rolling restart patch at 4 AM on Jan. 5.

News flash! Blizzard broke the bots! It is not just that you cannot buff them, they stopped shooting other bots! They have become a plain ol’ vanity pet. Worse than that, they have become a broken vanity pet. They used to shoot rockets out of their arms and now they just stand there and make cute robot sounds.

OK, I can understand that buffing them was a problem. But these bots reason for existence was to shoot rockets at other bots! World of Botcraft! Now they are like retired baby boomers who won’t protest any more and are just like “get off my lawn.”

According to my figures, there are 8 million broken Clockwork Rocket Bots out there. Grandfather Winter will be hearing from me and my lawyers!

Maidemao crafts polymer clay dolls of WoW characters and items.

These are simply adorable! I would rather have these in my cube than a FigurePrint of me in my Tier 0.001 gear.

They look to be about 1 inch tall or so. How big can you make them? I need them on a scale with my Mego 8″ action figures.

Could this be the solution? Sculpture replaces gold farming. Culture hacking!

This is my first attempt at creating a moving picture using WoW images.

If there is enough interest, I can create a tutorial here.

WoW Insider tells us that several players are getting coal in their mailboxes for Winter Veil.

On the two servers where I have a full 10 toons, four toons got Apple Cider and the rest got coal (nothing).

Of all my 40 toons, I got one Winter Boots and 8 cider that I cannot use. TYVM Blizz. Really puts me in holiday spirit.

When Blizzard changed the ? and ! to be much bigger, I accused them of turning on Easy Mode for all the newbs they hope to attract this holiday season. Me? I am hard core old school! I don’t need bigger ! marks. I know where all the quests are because I have done them a dozen times.

Or so I thought.

Now that I am leveling several new toons, I am discovering that I do not in fact know where all the quest givers live. There is a guy in Gadgetzan up on the roof that I have never seen before. There are quest givers so well hidden that just finding them is a challenge.

Of course it takes some of the challenge away from Herbalism when the herbs have their own little fireworks shows. And some quests that required you to find a certain tombstone in the cemetery are now neon obvious.

Overall, the bigger ! and ? have unlocked new content for me and for that I am grateful to Blizzard.

Going to take on the challenge of writing 3 posts on Saturday and 3 on Sunday. Here is Saturday’s first post.

Every morning on my server he runs through town, from the Bank to the Auction House.

Some days his name is kohsdhosfdghas and other days it is dieitrhwhthswhwh.

He says: why worry about gold? we sell safe no problem no worry. go to pwnu.com. ask about our powerbot specials. fast secure!

My banker sees him. She clicks on Report spam. Yes, Confirm. She stops hearing him.

But his bot keeps running for about 12 minutes.

He comes back every 8 hours.

Today Blizzard nerfed its trial accounts.

Trial accounts can no longer invite other players to join a group.

Apparently, a considerable percentage of all WoW players think that if a level 1 character that they have never heard of before invites them to join a group, the information that level 1 player tells them is brilliant.

I think it is brilliant that Blizzard finally removes this talent from its trial accounts. Trial accounts can barely figure out the /whisper system let alone /inv to spam.

So far, in my humble opinion, Blizzard has done the best job yet of combating the Gold Farming Horde. Better than Sony Online Entertainment. Better than eBay.

For that, we all benefit.

Today’s poll:

Have you ever even considered purchasing game gold online?

I can get you mount for $40. Click here.

Can you totally see the advantage to having some peon level your Rogue to L 70 working 24 hours a day for less than you get paid for 4 hours of wage slaving at the bank of hell yeah?!

Life begins when you are Epic, am I right?

SRSLY! How much gamegold have you bought for how much plastic?

Confession. This one time, in Anarchy Online, I needed a set of implants so bad that I … I … FedExed him a check in Norway.

I have never paid for gold in WoW.

Today’s poll: So what did you spend it on?

Simple answer: Mounts.

Mounts allow you to play the game faster. Think about that.

How much will you pay to play the game faster?

Personally I would pay 5% more per month to have all transports be instantaneous.

/me $19.95/month 3L337!!!!!111 x2 = dual heading

When you realize that your goal in life is to become more efficient about leveling two virtual aspects of your personality online, you can subscribe to my newsletter at maxbliss.net

Today was the first day of the Feast of Winter Veil, so yesterday I rolled a Blood Elf and leveled him to 10 mostly by farming dozens of Small Eggs from the Dragonhawks in Eversong Woods.

When Great-father Winter got hungry for Gingerbread Cookies today, I was ready with Small Eggs that I sold on the Auction House for 1-2 gold for 5 eggs. I sold more than 50 gold worth of eggs this morning.

To my utter amazement, I even sold single bottles of Ice Cold Milk–also requested by Great-father Winter–for 20 silver each! This required me to visit the Inn, buy 5 Ice Cold Milk for 1 silver 12 copper, separate that 5-pack into single bottles, and then walk 20 yards to the Auction House next door.

Sometimes all 5 bottles of milk would sell before I could walk back to the Inn or my mailbox, converting 1 silver into 1 gold in my pocket.

Surprisingly, not one of my customers thanked me for killing the Dragonhawks and harvesting the eggs and buying the milk so that they could get a Smokywood Pastures Gift Pack and 440 xp in less than one minute. Instead, I listened to people in Trade and General channel complain endlessly about the profiteers who were selling Small Eggs for big profits.

Everyone of the complainers could have easily competed with me. They could have flown to Thunder Bluff and chased Swoops and gathered 5 eggs. Might have taken them 20 minutes at the most. Any of them could have gone to the Inn and bought 5 Ice Cold Milk, used one and given four away.

But no, as the Goblins know full well, this is the season when gold changes hands faster than the rest of the year.

Have you ever bought something from a convenience store and paid more than you should because you were in a hurry? Of course, we all have, or the convenience stores would all go out of business.

Have you ever written a thank-you note to someone you bought something from in the Auction House and told them thanks for not vendoring that?

Have you ever complained in chat that someone else is making a profit and you are not?