The WoW Armory Mobile Auction House App

My initial reaction to the Armory Mobile Auction House was: why the hell would i pay extra for a feature that i can use in game.
But since i allready use the armory app, i decided to give it a go for a month and actually thought i would cancel it after that first month.

 

However i found this app to be surprisingly fun/easy to use.
My first thought was that i would really miss my Auctioneer add on, which helps in checking out prices to figure out what price would bring the most profit, but the app has a price check build in so with a little ectra effort it's posible to look for the best price.

Now one of the things i like most about it is the fact that you can log in from anywhere and do your auction house stuff, whenever you've got 5 or 10 minutes.

You have instant access to your bank, mail and inventory and can list items from all three, so relisting expired auctions is very easy, in game i would have to find an auction house first than go to the bank pull out the stuff i want to sell and go to the mailbox to retrieve any expired items and than go to the auction house to start listing.
With this app it doesn't matter where your character is in game (or where you are for that matter), as long as you've got the items in your inventory, bank or mail you can list it.
You can also claim your recieved auction house items or gold in the mail through this app, so i don't even have to go to a mailbox to retrieve it.

Now i do still miss the auctioneer addon but still think this Mobile Auction House app is awesome in it's use, the way Blizzard implemented the whole thing is simply amazing.
I now use this app to list my stuff, buy stuff and recieve my stuff and when i get home i can just jump in game and don't have to waste any time doing my auction house stuff.

So in short, is it worth the 3 dollars a month?
Considering the amount of time i save by using this app, time i can now use for questing/adventuring, i think it is :)

Spam through the roof..

Hey, finally a new post from me..
I know, i have been ignoring my blog for a very long time, but i am still alive :)

The WoW spam i have been recieving lately has gone through the roof, or to be clearer the phishing spam has.

Somehow they managed to get a hold of two of my email adresses, which are both not even used for WoW, go figure.
Of course there has been plenty of warnings, personally i made a rule of always going directly to the (official) WoW website and log in there and (of course) i use an authenticator so i should be safe (?).

I have been getting these in the last few weeks/months almost on a daily base and from what i read among the blogs a lot of people are getting them.

A spam example:

Hello,

This is an automated notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Your account options was recently modified through the Account Management website.

If you made this change to your subscription type, please disregard this automatic notification.

*** If you did NOT make any changes to your account or subscription, we recommend you login to Account Management at the following link to review your account settings:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/

If you cannot sign into Account Management using the link above, or if unauthorized changes continue to happen, please contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for advanced assistance.

Billing & Account Services can be reached at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499 Mon-Fri, 8Am-8PM Pacific Time) or at billing@blizzard.com.

Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives will typically lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

The World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowindex/

Obviously the links in this email look legit but clicking on them actually brings you to a completly different site.

Just a few nore of the headers as an example, "Battle.net Account Issue -- Account Locked Notice", "World of Warcraft Subscription Reminder", "Battle.net -- Login Account Changed Confirm", "World of Warcraft -- Character Faction Change Notice", "Cataclysm Beta Opt-In", "Blizzard Store Order#(random number)".

When i innitially recieved them i wasn't to concerned, as i said i use an authenticator and my email program and sometimes my email provider marks these emails as spam (they automaticly get a tag on the subject line like: [spam] or *****SPAM*****), while the official WoW mails get through just fine.
But after a while i was getting worried they might be messing with my account (i had not played or logged in to WoW for quite some time), but after logging in through the official website i saw that my account was just fine.

Just a few days ago i even started getting those type of emails for Aion, a game i never even played/tried, eventhough i do have some play time i believe from when Tabula Rasa shut down.

Anyway just a reminder, never click on an email link always go to the official website (i don't even do it on the official emails), check if the email adress you are recieving it on is the right one for your account (in my case i am getting spam on two seperate email adresses that i never used for the game), and when you can (like WoW) use an authenticator.
And another thing to notice, they official Blizzard (order) emails always have you first name in it.

Anyways: Play safe!

A new hero in Champions Online.

This weekend was a weekend of trying out new games for me, guess i am getting kind of bored and wanted to try some new stuff.

I found the Champions Online free trial on Steam and decided to give it a go.
My first impression through the tutorial was one of "i have allready been there" as it feels a lot like City of Heroes.
But still i think Champions Online is a fun game and i did spend a lot of time this weekend playing it.
I do think there's a lot of grinding, maybe a bit too much, but i still find myself having a lot of fun.

To me it is a lot like Star Trek Online, a lot of fun for a game "on the side", not for my main MMO, i guess that's Cryptic, their games are a lot of fun but after a while you want to play something else for a change.

Anyway, here's my new hero, she is called Dawnblade, her main power is Dual blades, but i thought it would be fun to make her blind, hence the blindfold :)
And of course she can fly with the help of her "rocket boots".


Oh yeah, i also love the iPhone app for Champions, hope they're also gonna make one for Star Trek Online, definatly love that stuff :)

I really would like to play Alpha Protocol but..

Sometimes i come across a game that doesn't work very well with my 3840x1024 screen resolution, unfortianatly Alpha Protocol is one of those.

Eventhough the game works, it's menu screens are partially off screen, meaning i can't click anything to agree or like in the screenshot below, can't select a class to play.


Usually i get by this by selecting a smaller screen resolution, like for example Mass Effect (1&2) they both have the same problem where the menu buttons were off screen, but i selected a 1280x1024 resolution and i could play the game, not the way i would like but at least i could play.

Alpha Protocol however, i can't even change the resolution, as i can't get to the button to accept a new resolution (if there is one)


There is also no option to change the resolution before starting the game, even messing around with the games .Ini files did nothing as the game just started up in 3840x1024 resolution.

To all game developers, is it so hard to at least make a menu screen that adapts to the screen resolution, no matter what it is, so that you can get to all options...

Looks like, unless they fix this, which is very unlikely as not many gamers would have this problem, i won't be able to play any Alpha Protocol, so i just wasted 50 Euros..

Into the Gateway to Khitai

Tianyi finally made it to the Gateway to Khitai, after reaching lvl 20 i started the "end battle" at Tortage and went on my way.
I did decide to speed up the leveling by using some xp potions, as i allready went to Tortage several times and i didn't really feel like doing it all again, eventhough some of the storylines are different depending on the class you play, so as soon as i could i started the quest that lets you leave Tortage and go to your homecountry.

I was actually surprised to see a ton of quests to start there, as i didn't see any quests when i went there with my (instant) lvl 50 character (named Hsiumei), so no wonder i felt lost with her as there were no quests to lead me on, all i could do was continue on the destiny quest.

When i got there with Tianyi and got all those quests the whole thing finally started making sense, as the basic story is that the caravan you're travelling with stops because they see another caravan that has been attacked and you're basicly going out there to help them.

Although there is a lot of lag at the Gateway to Khitai, it sure is refreshing to see some new areas/surroundings.
I also decided to go with another class when i created Tianyi, so far i have mostly played my main, who is a barbarian, which i think is a really fun class, but with Tianyi i decided to try out a guardian, and i have to say so far that's a lot of fun, i definatly prefer to use a polearm, but i think i might give some other weapons a try.

So far i really like the melee classes a lot more than the magic classes, personally i really feel the melee classes are more "Conan", but that's just personal i guess.

Another thing i am still hoping for in AoC is an appearance tab/appearance armor, so that you can look the way you want to look and still use the "good stats" armor, and at least look a bit (more) different than everyone else, right now you wander around in game and you constantly see people running around in the exact same armor as you are wearing, sometimes it feels like you're in the army where everyone wears the same uniform.
And no, i don't think PvP is an argument against appearance armor as i am on a PvE server.

Meet Tianyi, Khitan Guardian

Say hi to Tianyi, a Khitan Guardian, my latest character in AoC. :)
She is not the first Khitan character i created, i made a Demonologist first and decided to use the (one time only) instant level 50 option and ended up in Khitai.

It just didn't feel right playing her, being thrown into a class i really haven't played much at lvl 50 just didn't do it for me, so i decided to roll a new character and start at Tortage as lvl 1.

So far i am having a blast, although i can't wait to leave Tortage (allready reached lvl 17) and head out to Khitai, from what i have seen so far it looks pretty good.
The only bad thing is, there's way to many people in Khitai at the moment so the lag is awefull :(

Anyway a few more levels and i am off to Khitai :)

WTF Funcom?

Today i got a very surprising email from Funcom, they decided to freeze (cancel) my account because i had not paid the upgrade for the collectors edition of Rise of the Godslayer.
Now i pay this by using their "Pay by Cash" service and it didn't go through yet, nor did i get a message about this.

The main thing that pisses me off here is the fact that i have a paid account, paid for a full year that still runs to Dec 2010, so at least 6 more months.
I also allready paid for the "normal" Rise of the Godslayer expansion, i just added the collectors edition.
I would have understand it if they would have simply disabled the expansion for my account but instead they decided to simply freeze my entire account, which i f'ing paid for in advance..

Now i know it can be easily fixed, and i did by sending payment for the expansion, but i still believe they have no right to shut down my entire account when it is paid for in advance.
Really not a nice move, especially since i got no previous warnings about the payment not going through.
I would have been ok with just the expansion being turned off, afterall that was the only thing not fully paid yet.

Not a nice move.. not nice at all...