Today while browsing the forums i came across this little note from BashIok, World of Warcraft in the New Year, there is an excellent chance of using your in game gold to buy game time legitimately. Whoa what? Us greedy goblin gold-makers are gonna reap the profits for game time? Well it hasn’t come to fruition just yet but this little excerpt is just what the doctor ordered. The currency conversion rate could skyrocket because of this, causing all those little gold selling websites to go broke. We can only hope. I was looking into a currency conversion rate at the moment and found a rate of $0.00068/gold, with this new bit of news, that rate could change drastically. So at the current conversion rate that would be 30k gold for one months subscription equal to $14.99 USD.

New Ways to Play

We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold. Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system. A few other online games offer a similar option, and players have suggested that they’d be interested in seeing something along those lines in WoW. We agree it could be a good fit for the game, and we look forward to any feedback you have as we continue to look into this feature.

Now, as If i am not the achievement nut i am, even more ways to get more achievements with friends and your garrison, perhaps this will go further into detail as Bashiok, reveals some new insight into the future about garrisons and friends.

All About That Base

Garrison improvements, tweaks, and additions are on the horizon. While we’re working on some bigger additions for later on, we have a lot of other changes and additions you’ll see on the next PTR. We’re working on making visiting your friends’ Garrisons even more rewarding, with a daily visitor to set you and your friends on a fun random task (complete with rewards, Achievements, and a meta-Achievement for finishing all of the tasks). We’ll have awesome new items to spend your Garrison Resources on, new Missions to complete with fun new rewards, new items to change your Followers with, a new tier of Garrison-invasion difficulty for the most tenacious of defenders among you (can your Garrison withstand a world boss?), new profession-building Missions, and a whole lot more!

My firth thought on this is to go try the PTR to see what its all about. i am hoping for something related to old reputations and a way to display them as well, along with the new reputations from Warlords of Draenor. I would like to show off my 30 something tabards and reputations that I am exalted with, but wait thats just bragging, and well , Bragging, yeah thats what fellow dungeoneers and greedy goblin gold makers do, its all about that new achievement, that no one else has or about conquering a new reputation that took you hours, days, weeks and even months to grind out.

This next bit of news is for those collectors, you already have your toy box collection tab, and well they promised something to do with tabards, but this is for those heirloom collectors, you know those near legendary items that are very hard to find, and complete acheivement wise. Bashiok says they are working on a new account wide system. here is the excerpt. I cant wait to get into the PTR and test this little puppy out.

Collecting Your Heirlooms

We’re pretty far along in development on the much-talked-about Heirloom tab. This will bring the whole Heirloom system into a single account-wide collection UI and provide a clear purchase/upgrade path for all items. Heirlooms already on characters will be collected into the new UI (similar to other Collections features), base-level Heirlooms will be purchasable from vendors, and upgrade tokens that can be used on Heirlooms to raise their effectiveness to additional level caps will be obtainable through different forms of content. We’ll be looking for your feedback on the new system when the 6.1 PTR goes live.

The next little tidbit, well it tells of Black Rock Foundry coming in the near future and well Bashiok seems happy that most of already completed Mythic High maul, but this little tidbit explains it all. next week the Imperator LFR wing opens and players get to see another boss from High Maul, i personally have completed LFR up to date, but have only ventured into High Maul Normal 1 time to kill the first boss, but if i find the right fit in the right raid group i could see more.

Game Ogre

Raiders are continuing to enjoy Highmaul in all its ogre-y glory, and we’re watching how things play out as the last couple wings open in Raid Finder difficulty. While progression through Highmaul continues, Warlord Blackhand is eagerly awaiting your arrival in the Blackrock Foundry raid. We’re expecting Blackrock Foundry to become available in February. We’ll announce specific dates once we’ve seen more of how Highmaul progression . . . progresses.

In another bit of news, my Beast mastery hunter, Whiteaxe, completed the legendary ring quest line part 1 today, and heres some more news about the legedary quest line continuing on in the future, maybe some of that hard earned data mining that wowhead did, will pay off in the near future. here’s the excerpt from Bashiok regarding the New Legendary quest line information.

Feeling Legendary

We hope everyone is enjoying the Legendary quest line with Khadgar, the next step of which opens up with the Blackrock Foundry raid in the new year. We’re already working on the steps after that, and the quest line will continue in Patch 6.1, where the first-ever Legendary Follower (with suitably Legendary abilities) will be available to join your Garrison. If you’re a fan of collecting Followers but haven’t set out on the Legendary quest line, now is a good time to get started!

Oh, I am a follower collector i have 30 so far, and am working to acquire more, just to send the ones home that are not Epic or even Heroic, So i send those little green followers home until I need them in the future for their skills and continue collecting more followers, they are getting harder and harder to find. The scavenger trait is a helpful trait for followers bringing back items and upgrades for followers, my near 646 follower, my favorite is Talonpriest Ishaal. Trying hard to acquire that 650 ilevel on my follower for that achievement. The guide on Wowhead is an excellent source for follower collectors. here is the Link.

Now, this next little tidbit of news is astonishing, i have been submitting suggestions for the past couple months about adding Facebook compatibility and twitter compatibility, Guess what? It may soon be coming, yeah just the Twitter part, but you can only ask so much from those genius’s at Blizzard. Here is the tidbit from Bashiok about twitter and screen shots.

Pepe’s Favorite New Feature

We’re working on the ability to send out Tweets—including screenshots—directly from within WoW, making it easier than ever to let friends know about your Achievements and item drops. We’ll be testing this functionality on the Patch 6.1 PTR.

This next little note, from Basiok on the World of Warcraft forums deals with getting the lastest up to date game information and design twitter feed.

We’re helping consolidate up to the minute game information and interaction with a new Twitter account: @WarcraftDevs. This new account will be your one-follow need for any developer insight, design inquiries, and dev feedback. Many of our devs will continue using Twitter for personal tweets, but any new game info or design insight they have to share will come from @WarcraftDevs. As always you’ll also want to follow@Warcraft for game announcements, news, and community creations. Follow today and get up to the minute game development and design info!

Well, thats all for now, Toodaloo, more later!