Guild Wars PVP Edition

I can't tell whether I love or loathe the Guild Wars PVP Editions for each of the three campaigns. You can buy the regular edition, which allows you to unlock skills via either the Roleplaying mode or by spending PVP Points, OR you can buy a version of the game which has no RP mode and instead has all of the skills and many weapons unlocked for all PVP Characters you create on your account. Since ArenaNet has made it clear that no PVP advantage should come from having played more, I guess having more options is nice, but sacrificing the option to do the single player game for immediate benefit seems like it would be a decision that many would eventually regret.

Blame everything, but just a little.

Relatively little blame has been placed on video games for this week's tragedy, except for Jack Thompson's traditional douchebagery. I'm a bit surprised by this, especially with the attention being paid to sketchy connections to Old Boy, but I guess with the very diffuse blame this week that no extreme measures will be taken in a vain attempt to stop future tragedies like this.

Super Paper Mario ain't all that other people make it out to be.

While Super Paper Mario is proving to be an enjoyable game, I'm not nearly as thrilled as a lot of other people seem to be. Too many of the levels are either far too short or just poorly designed fpr me to avidly support the game. Furthermore, many of the puzzles or fetch quests are just really damn annoying., including one combination code that is a full twenty steps long. Twenty steps? What a load of bullshit; If the makers of the game really wanted to make sure you wrote that shit down, eight steps would have been enough. Twenty is just sadistic overkill.

The Bad levels so far (up to 5-3) include:
3-2
3-3
4-1
4-2
4-4
5-1

The Great levels so far include:
2-1
3-1
3-4
4-4

WoW Market Predictions

Making long-term predictions for virtual economies often proves to be unimaginably difficult, but that isn't enough for me to stop my futile attempts at analyzing the Ore market after the upcoming World of Warcraft Patch.

A few of the changes to consider-

1) Uncut green gems will vendor for less, reducing the profitability of prospecting, which will in turn reduce the number of Rare gems that make it to market.

2) Mining nodes are going to be placed closer to enemies, making mining slower, which will likely reduce the overally supply.

3) Primal Nethers are going to be easier to get, and there is also further incentive to run Heroic instances in new epic gem drops, so the overall supply of Nethers will increase.

4) The Epic BoE crafter weapons are going to require more materials, increasing the deman.

With these facts in mind, I predict that the price of ore will go up.

Now, the standard response to this prediction is that the higher prices will lure more people to the Mining profession, but I don't think it would rise enough to keep prices the same. On my server, everyone and their mother is a miner alread.

Ignorance, Idiocay, and Dogmatism.

While some concessions are made for the laws of economics, the economy of World of Warcraft seems heavily driven by ignorance, idiocacy, and dogmatism.

The case in point that absolutely drives me insane is how people deal with the price of transmutes. Often, going by the Auction House prices that actually sell, the difference between the materials and the finished product is over ten gold. Yet, people still charge and pay only five gold for the transmute. Any attempts to ask for more, should one be stupid enough to not use the transmute cooldowns whenever possible, and you'll attract tells from scrubs that berate you for being 'greedy'.

The 5g price for transmutes makes no sense, at all, and completely ignores the actual value of the process. Furthermore, anyone that SELLS the transmutes is an idiot; in virtually all situations, it is a wiser decision to buy the mats yourself and just transmute them whenever possible.