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Long term players may well have become aware of changes in the way Warcraft’s economy is working over the past fifteen months or so. The progression of wealth alongside character progression and profession is now completely out of balance.

The system is being swayed by the huge numbers of level 80 characters on most servers.

My situation is not unique. I have 16 level 80 characters (I level characters up by multiboxing 5 at a time) That may seem a lot, but I know several guild buddies who have three of four level 80′s levelled the normal way – and often a level 80 Death Knight as well.

But I still start new toons, and this follows a pattern.

Well, if you’re anything like me, you are trying a new class, race or combination of the two. At some point you give your character a profession, then, using the huge piles of gold from your main characters you level them up to say 225 in about 90 minutes. Buying stacks of low level items in the process.

However, at some point down the line I get bored of the characters.

Most of the time I stop. Never buying the mid range ingredients I need to level my profession. Sometimes even deleting the ‘toon to make space on the server for another. I won’t learn though. Chances are that I will repeat the whole process in the future, and buy my way up to a certain point with another alt later.

This is adding to the imbalance of the game. Crafting is now a huge gold sink. Until you max these professions out they make little that sells and are pretty much a universal waste of time. Especially when you compare them with gathering professions that will make you an absolute fortune. Blizzard know this, so expect a big change in patch 4.0

The Warcraft economy is going to change with Cataclysm. I predict the following.

Crafting professions will be overhauled. Items at low level will be tweaked to make them more attractive to buy. They will cost more to make, but the good ones will offer more than one skill point towards the crafters profession.

New huge gold sinks will be added. The biggest gold sinks ever. It is rumoured that there will be a skill needed to fly across the ashen wastes of Azeroth, and that might set you back between 5000g and 10000g. New speed perks for flight will also cost a fortune. More than your epic cost in the first place.

Archaeology will provide crafting materials that can be added at the manufacturing stage to alter the stat bonuses of many items made by the existing professions. These perks will improve the saleability of these items still further, and will provide some real variety and choice for both the crafter and the potential user.

Consumables will go up for level 81-85. Not just the graded step that they went up with Wrath of the Lich King, but a huge increase. Food, Drink, Ammo, repairs and in game flights (which you may well have to take before getting proficiency to fly over Azeroth) will cost exponentially more than the current equivalents in Northrend

The players will be forced to “ungroup” either from guild or (in my case) multibox setups to progress from 81-85. Instance in groups but level alone will be the way. This will prevent exploiting colleagues to rush through these levels. Blizzard are determined to make this a unique and exciting journey for players – not just the rush to level cap that previous expansions have been

Blizzard has the choice to either totally revamp the economy of Warcraft, or at some point in the future get rid of the idea of an in game economy altogether. The current system is uneven and is getting more out of kilter by the day. The laws of supply and demand have become unbalanced in a way that would not happen in the real world.

Luckily for those of us who enjoy the professions and economic parts of the game, Blizzard seem to have noticed this, and are putting some efforts into getting it right. If it fails however, then perhaps 5.0 will be the end of in game crafting and a proper economy altogether.

For more Warcraft news, and access to our free downloadable guides For the goldblog, click here For the best Warcraft gold guide avaialable then try The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide

The end is coming for Warcraft gold guides. Soon the idea of reading from a PDF document while playing the game will seem as daft as boiling your shoes. They have served a purpose, now they need to make way for something better.

Let’s face it, reading a PDF document while playing is not really state-of-the-art is it? One minute you are playing, the next clicking on a pile of text trying to work out where to go to grind or farm materials, or what items might be cheap at the Auction house that day.

The term “guide” tells it’s own sorry story. A guide isn’t proactive, it just points you in the right direction. If you are hiking down the Amazon basin, a guide is useful, but it’s not going to do the hard yards for you is it?

Guides played a part once, but times change. The days of a text document, maybe with a couple of lines of LUA code you could cut and paste into the game (“whoopee doo” – yawn) has had it’s day, time to buckle up, and move on.

Then there are the guides that call themselves “systems”. Have you seen these? A system is a procedure you follow, using tools provided to achieve a result. Ok, fine, well the system in these guides seems to be;

1 – Refer to the guide provided

2 – What are you doing here? Get back to the guide!

If it’s auction house domination you are after then the guys at Norganna.org have got that covered. Norganna has a complete run-down of the whole auctioneer system. He even has his own Wiki. I have every guide I could find on the net and none (and I mean absolutely none what-so-ever) have the amount of good auctioneer information that Norganna has. Period. That shouldn’t suprise you. He wrote the application.

The auctioneer addon for example has its own website and even its own Wiki. I’ve bought every Warcraft gold guide I can find on the net and I’ve never seen anything in any of them that isn’t vastly inferior to the free information that Norganna.org give you for free.

Of course a couple add a little bit of technical help. Show you some macro code you can copy into the Warcraft GUI to do quick searches at auction and sell stuff one click. I’m not knocking that, it sounds good. But it’s hardly ground breaking is it?

Wouldn’t it be better if you had a real system? One that did all the work for you? You press a couple of buttons and Wham! Your server’s economy is exposed.

A system that is totally conforming to Blizzards terms and conditions yet gets right under the hood of your economy. So simple anyone could do it?

Imagine, no more grinding, no more farming, no “messin’ and guessin’” at the auction house’ A quick install, then a real system that does everything for you.

To take a look at the WoW-C Project click here Or if you’d prefer just Click for free guides

Let’s take a first look at what is happening “under the hood” of the first Warcraft movie. Many of the outline details are now available, so let’s see what we can expect.

Fanfare – The movie is being directed by Sam Raimi. His resume includes the first three Spiderman movies (he is rumoured to have walked out on the fourth) Scream and (if you are old enough to remember) the excellent Evil Dead. This inital announcement shows that this is no mini-budget tie-in or rip off. This is being seen as a major movie release with serious production and directorial values.

It is being written by Robert Rodat, He of “Saving Private Ryan” fame. Looking through Robert’s resume, it seems that action will play a very large part in the movie. However expect some pretty moving personal moments as well. Ryan was a rollercoaster of emotions. Fear and frustration (the stabbing scene while his buddy whimpered on the stairs still drives me mad today).

The location for most scenes is likely to be New Zealand. Again, the precedent is set with films like Lord of the Rings showing that this spectacular landscape can certainly become a realistic fantasy backdrop. It’s not difficult to imagine an “Azerothian” feel.

The earliest possible release is late 2011. That’s almost two years time. It is far more likely however that the film will be out in 2012. Why? Because this reviewer feels that whatever the expansion after Cataclysm is, it will be out in late 2012. My betting the two will be released together, and there will be a synergy between them. Expect Lore to be advanced and concepts inter-changed between the film and whatever the fourth expansion turns out to be.

At this early stage, one thing dopes seem certain. The film will be action based (as opposed to quest based) though whether we have Alliance verses Horde or either verses Scourge – or indeed a mixture of the two – remain to be seen. Of course, we could always have a new entity introduced just for the film.

So far no names have been mooted for the leading role (or roles). It is unlikely that the film’s producers have even got around to deciding themselves yet

Legendary Pictures (Batman Begins, 300) are behind this movie. Good news in itself. There is no shortage of experience in making top quality action movies there then! Expect this to be a top notch production.

Now this site is up and running properly again, we will take the time every so often to keep you up to date with the progress of this movie. Expect star Bio’s and location shots as soon as we can get hold of them.

Discuss the latest with other Warcraft fans @ The Warcraft Blog We offer the best professional, downloadable Free Warcraft Guides as well. Free guides. Now that’s got to be a good thing!

It can seem a long process getting to level 80. Getting distracted with professions and running out of gold for equipment. Here are five good reasons why you should ignore all that, and push on to level cap.

1 – Warcraft is now all about the end game. There is so much content once you get there that you will wonder why it took you so long. Ilevel-200 gear is so “last year”.

2 – Full blown PvP in Northrend, and beyond. Sure you can PvP at lower level, but the experience at level cap, with the new vehicles and team play, as well as the fantastic battlegrounds makes this the very best place to PvP in the game.

3 – Level 80 for the first time? Or doing it for the tenth? It’s a great feeling. It’s like a rite-of-passage. Now you have made it a whole new world opens up.

4 – Ready for Cataclysm? Want to jump straight into the new content when it arrives? Then you really need to be pretty close to level cap to be ready to rock-and-roll.

5 – Make gold. No matter what people tell you about getting gold, the whole process gets a lot easier when you have high level characters. Even doing a few quests for an hour will net you a couple of hundred gold pieces once you sell the stuff. Why go to all that hassle early in the game when all along just playing it properly, getting to level cap as quickly as possible was the best way to proceed?

From the outside it can seem like there are two goals. Getting to level cap, and getting super rich. At times they might even seem to take you in different directions. Take it from someone who has done it 16 times. Levelling up as efficiently as you can is the key to success in both areas of the game.

What are you waiting for? Time to level up.

Zygor’s guide is the best and fastest way to level in Warcraft, click to see this Zygor’s levelling guide . Or for help in every aspect of the game, click here for our Free Warcraft Guides

If you’re looking to get better roleplaying skills as a player, one way in D…D is to create a better D…D character background. Building a better D…D background allows your Dungeon Master more material to work with in creating the story. It also will give the player and other players more character hooks and opportunities to grab on to. We’re going to list five tips on how to create a better D…D character background to improve your roleplaying experience. These tips will provide quick and easy to use plot hooks and personality traits.

Choose one thing that your character will die for. This is a focal point to the character. It could be any attack on a religious member of his church causes him to go into a blind rage against the attacker. Or maybe he is fighting to save his people from an evil overlord. Anything that will help his people or hurt the evil overlord is good enough for him to die for.

Pick three things that your character will always fight for. These three things are things that will instantly cause the character to go into fight mode. He may not fight to the death over these, but he will always address them appropriately. Perhaps the player just can’t stand it when people insult him about his short stature. Or maybe he hates it when people make fun of any one of his adventuring comrades.

Decide on one thing that your character fears the most. Perhaps your character has an intense fear of flying and resists any flight or levitation spells that are cast on him. Your character may have an intense fear of snakes, no matter how big or small. Or maybe your character has an intense fear of a specific creature, like werewolves, vampires, liches, or ghosts.

Choose one characteristic that defines your character to other people. Perhaps the primary characteristic you choose is benevolent. This character gives money to the poor when he can. He also lets defeated enemies leave the battlefield without dying if they fought honorably. A character with a vengeful characteristic would be more inclined to remember those that have defeated him and plot their demise for a later date. A vengeful character rarely ever lets acts of transgression towards him pass.

Pick one additional character that is important to your character. This character could be another person in the party, or it could be an NPC. Then you need to define the relationship between your character and the other character. This could be a good connection, someone who has always been there to help you in your time of need. Or, it could be someone that always has a negative influence in your life. Maybe when you’re at your worst, this person seems to always show up and makes things even more miserable.

These seven characteristics don’t take too long to figure out when you’re creating a character. Decide on one thing you would die over, three things that you would fight for, one thing that your character is intensely scared of, one personality characteristic and one supplementary character that is somehow connected to yours. By answering each of these questions listed above, you can easily develop a more fleshed out character. This gives you more roleplaying opportunities and hooks for roleplaying due to the fact that you’ve developed a better D…D character background.

Espen writes articles about Role-Playing and DnD Character information.