The Valor Dance: Dailies, Reputation, Upgrades, Trouble

Mists of Pandaria has brought us a bit of a roller coaster when it comes to our valor points and how we acquire and speed them. In Cataclysm, there were very few changes (just the move from 1 dungeon per day awarding valor to 7 per week) and we essentially just did a few heroic dungeons, killed a few raid bosses, and spent our points when we had enough. In MoP, however, the valor gear was gated behind reputation which was gated behind dailies. Valor being unspendable before doing enough dailies has been much lamented by the player base. Of course, since launch, each patch has brought a new curve ball in terms of valor. Continue to see the different valor changes so far, the problems with those changes, and what’s coming up in patch 5.3!

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Warcraft Around the World

Blog MapI was looking at my site statistics recently and noticed a massive variety of views from different countries. Now, I have no illusions that this blog is something super popular – it isn’t, but if you look at that map above, it shows all of the countries with views on this blog. Not only is it personally interesting to me, but also shows how wide spread Warcraft really is. The world is a really small place. Continue along to see the full list of countries that have viewed this, you might be surprised to see how far Warcraft and interest in the game have spread. (more…)

Wild Speculation About the Future

Occasionally, we all get the urge to speculate about how the future will turn out. It’s practically a compulsion that’s part of the human condition. Everything from end of the world prophecies that get people in an uproar to gambling show people’s desire to see what’s coming. Us Warcraft players are no different but unlike in the real world scenarios that don’t seem likely (I’m looking at you 2011 raptures) – there is pretty much no end to what Blizzard could bring us. Looking back at Mists of Pandaria, I doubt many people saw the Pandaren coming but finding out there is a new titan facility that we’d yet to discover wasn’t a big shock. Continue after the break for some (potentially) crazy ideas about what I predict is in the pipeline and some stuff that just isn’t going to happen (move on demon hunter dreamers!).

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Transfer Gold Cross Realm

Ever want to start a character on a new server but don’t want to do it without the power of your gold? Transfer to a different server but hampered by pesky limits on gold transfer limits? Something recently occurred to me, it may have been obvious to others, but I’d yet to hear about it. The new pet system in 5.2 is a perfect way to send gold between characters on different servers. Continue to see how and why this works.

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Magni Bronzebeard Returns?

Magni

Last night Chris Metzen, the Senior Vice President of Story and Franchise Development with Blizzard, was blowing up twitter answering random “x or y” tweets (he didn’t get to my ninja turtles vs dungeon boss question, unfortunately). One of his responses (shown after the page break) may have incidentally revealed something larger than the community has realized so far. For those who are unaware, Magni Bronzebeard is the elder of the 3 Bronzebeard brothers and is the rightful King of  the Dwarves at Ironforge. Unfortunately, after messing around with some titan relics somewhere during patch 4.1 in Cataclysm, he has been turned entirely to diamond. This left a void for his estranged daughter, now leading the Dark Iron Dwarves (see: bad guys) to come take a place of power in Iron Forge. But, Chris Metzen’s tweet may have hinted that Magni is coming back.

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Welcome to the New 15 Minutes of WoW

Hello and welcome!

If you’re a returning reader coming over from the old site – thanks for following me here, stalking is normally weird but this time is appreciated! For those just joining, you won’t notice that I’m using a new layout, so I’m pointing it out.

In this transition between wordpress.com and private hosting, there may be some bugs, some bear with me (and feel free to let me know if anything is off). Outside of that, you should be expecting more little bursts of World of Warcraft insights, commentary, news, and etc. Feel free to share this link – 15minutesofwow.alternateimage.net – to any WoW related friends and sites that you think would need the updated link or just might enjoy reading. Thanks for coming!