But thankfully there are plenty enough people who have remained faithful to EQ2 so I never lack for a group. Plus I know more than a few people who have been double dipping, which I can use to gain an insight into how WoW compares to the classic nature of EQ. Or I just don’t care. Whatever.

But I do hope everyone has been having fun down in the Ruins of Guk. Arcanum has been a blast and I’m really enjoying the new gear that’s available. Keep having to restock thanks to a few of the kinder residents of the ruins, but that’s kinda the way things tend to go for me. I have the sense to buy wow account so that I’m not wasting time between runs trying to build up my purse again. Just not that interested in playing those parts all over again, thanks.

Also should mention that there’s an expansion on the way. Destiny of Vellious will contain a whole bunch of new stuff that we’ll want to be playing with and buy wow account for, but this is one we get to buy.

However, our good friends on the dev team have decided to throw some stuff our way in the mean time. For everyone who either has a traditional account, like myself, or plays extended with a Gold or Platinum account, there will be many gifts given over the course of the next copule of months to reward us for our loyalty. There will be 2 mystery items distributed tomorrow, then two more on January 18th. Finally, when February 8th rolls around, you’ll get both an Ice Wolf Mount and the new Freeblood Vampire race as a final set of gifts! It’s like 2 extra Christmases after the holiday rush is finally over! Can’t ask for much more than that!

So make sure your account is in good shape tonight, people! Then enjoy the free giftage and the new expansion when it drops.

Anyway, other than buying wow account while plastered, there are a few other key things to keep in mind.

Firstly, don’t buy from sites that can’t seem to master the English language. This isn’t some sort of ethnocentric rant, it’s just that if they don’t know English they probably aren’t even on the right set of servers. And if they are, there’s a higher chance that they’ll say something wrong and get you exposed. Not cool. Besides, China just recently got WotLK. Hard to connect with people when they’re that far away game wise.

Another thing to watch for is whether or not the site has a money-back guarantee. If they don’t it probably isn’t worth your while to stick around. Sites with the guarantee tend to have safer practices and far more competant people because they’re larger, more established, and more practiced at selling plat.

Also, never EVER use a site that requests money orders. If they won’t take a form of payment that you can reverse if you get shafted, they plan on shafting you. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Paypal, credit cards, even Western Union, but never money orders.

Of course, this just helps you get the plat. Once you have it, it’s just as easy to lose it if you aren’t careful.

Remember, GMs are not mythological, they do pay attention to chat channels. If you blab about what you’ve done in open chat, you will get caught, you will lose the plat, and probably your account too. And you’ll have no one to thank but yourself.

Also keep your buys reasonable for your level. People get suspicous if a level 12 gets 1 million plat. Moderation is key out there, where every action is stored and can be watched whenever the GMs like.

Enough from me. Go buy wow account safely!

Of course, Arcanum is nothing to sneeze at. A whole new dungeon to explore with enough rare drops to make anyone happy is just another little thing that makes EQ2 so great. Myself, I’m just glad we have a little something to be doing. And of course we’re going to want to buy wow account to keep ourselves geared up and ready.

In fact, I think I’ll just do that today. I want to be able to stop by and pick up some of the new armor that they talked about in the release. I’m always down for new gear, and there’s no sense missing out on it just because I’m a little low on scratch. In fact I may go buy wow account later today. I’ll let you know how that goes if I do.

That does remind me that a friend of mine had a less than stellar experience buying plat lately. He’d been shopping around for a new site recently but hadn’t found anything he liked. I’m not sure if he was drunk or what, but he decided to try out a new site without doing his usual diligence.

Now, mind you, he’s a really savvy buyer. He was the one who recommended Toonstorm to me in the first place, and I haven’t regretted doing business with them once.

This time he seemed to go off the deep end. When I checked the site out after he emailed me (brokenly, which further supports my theory of “drunk”) I could hardly believe my eyes. I’ve gotten better English out of a cat, and feline coding would probably have produced a better website, too. Teh kittiez iz mooch better at teh code, afer all.

Sorry. Been spending too much time with the lolcats lately.

Anyway, he paid with Paypal (thankfully), then apparently went to bed. When he woke up (and sobered up), he emailed me again in a panic wondering what he’d done. I checked the site again, only to find out that it was gone. Like permagone. 404, amigo. He confirmed this then started the process of cancelling his payment to them. We both knew he’d never see that plat.

Moral here: Don’t drink and buy.

It seems our friends are gearing up for a new expansion that promises some great new areas and more gear than you can shake a broadsword at. Right now they haven’t talked about it much, but they have let us in on one really important little detail. If nothing else, travel is going to be greatly improved in our little corner of the interwebs with the introduction of flying mounts. Yup, flying mounts. Take that, WoW. Yes you had them first, but we didn’t need them. Now we’re getting them just because we can. So there.

Yeah, that was mature…

Anyway, I’m really happy to get the darned things. Travel time should be greatly improved at the very least, plus it opens up all sorts of possibilities for aerial combat that we had only dreamed of. I’d really like to take a dragon on in midair and see just how badly it hurt when I died. And die I would.

The only real downside I can see is just how expensive these things are bound to be. I mean, really, mounts are overpriced as it is, so just imagine how bad it’s going to be when they can fly?

There is always an answer to this, of course. Just buy wow account and the problem goes away.

Although, that does bring me to a point I wanted to raise. You see, expansions are awesome for all of the new fun they bring us, but they can also be perilous for folks like you and me. While this isn’t always the case, devs like to include funny little security things in expansions designed to “balance the game”. In other words, they’re looking for ways to keep us from buying wow account.

Okay, that’s a little paranoid. Really they’re trying to keep people from cheating by altering the game code, using hacks, or otherwise really harming the game experience. What we’re doing is nothing that couldn’t be accomplished by hours of grinding so it falls pretty low on the scale of doom. Hackers, powerlevelers, and scammers are far bigger problems for them than little old us.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious when a release is coming out. I usually buy plenty of plat before it drops, that way I have it and don’t have to worry about it until the good sites have time to work around any new security in place.

Oh, and neener-neener, WoW.

Here’s the gist of things.

Those of us who have been paying the $15 monthly will still enjoy everything we’ve had access to up until now. There will be no change whatsoever because we’re grandfathered in as vets. New players will have some choices to make.

They can take a free option and get some really basic access to the game. There will only be a few options available for races and classes, only one character slot available, and other such restrictions. The biggest one to affect anyone who would buy wow account is that there would be a maximum enforced on how much you can hold.

Next you have a Silver level that allows more freedom, an extra character slot, and some more room for plat and other things. This is designed as a one time purchase for people more serious about playing that the average free player but not quite into as much as the truly hardcore.

After that comes Gold. That’s roughly equivalent to what we have now as paying members. There are still some limits on starting races, but you can buy them separately. You can use legendary items and other such important things. Plus there’s plenty of room if you were looking to buy wow account. That will give you just about everything except the content available in Sentinel’s Fate. Once you buy that, though, you’re covered.

Then comes the choice for the truly hardcore. The Platinum membership is not for the weak of heart or the empty of wallet. It’s $200 per year which kinda will cut into any plat buying around the time it’s taken, but you get benefits galore for it. It includes everything. By that I mean all content, including Sentienel’s Fate, all of the possible races and classes, EVERYTHING. It’s a lot to pay, but it will be worth every penny. I’m not opposed to the idea, although affording it is going to be… interesting at best.

I’m more for sticking with the monthly membership I have. It’s easier to budget and I won’t gain anything I don’t already have.

It isn’t often that a company will go back and add new content to the beginning of a game. But the crazy devs responsible for EQ2 have done just that.

If you haven’t heard, they launched the Halas Reborn expansion which is a brand new area for starting characters. It will have all of the great trappings of a whole new game. You’ll be playing in the Halas tundra that will have new housing, Raids galore, and a starting zone all its own.

Some of you may be wondering just why anyone would do that? Well, for one thing just about everyone and their dog has played the standard starting zone for EQ2, so it’s gotten a little stale. It’s hard to draw in the newest generation of gamers if you’re still using the content that the last two generations have played. Yes there is the nostalgia factor, but that just doesn’t hold up when there’s so much competition for the MMO audience out there.

The other reason this is fun is actually focused on the veteran players. Sometimes is really great to start a new character and play from the beginning again. No rushing, no powerleveling. You still buy wow account of course, but not as much of it. It’s fun to take the trip down memory lane, same as if you ever got the itch to load up EQ1, or Diablo 2, or Double Dragon (okay I just dated myself there). The only problem with this is as soon as you start playing those opening areas again, you start remembering what you didn’t like about them as well. The quests were kind of tedious, focusing on fetching and really basic play. The area hasn’t changed much so you’re looking at the same old places you’ve been before.

The addition of a new starting area breaks that up a little. For me, it’s the chance to try out a different class and not mind starting from the very beginning. It will feel nostalgic in that I’m playing a weakling trying to make my way through the brutal fledgling stages of herodom, but it will feel new just like it did the first time I installed EQ2 because I won’t know what to expect.

Anyway, buy wow account and check this thing out. It’s going to be fun!

It’s one of those things that happens to everyone eventually, especially if you buy wow account. The day will come when you really want to try out a new site because they’re offering a great deal on plat, and with the money you save you can almost double your buy. This, my friends, is where the tale begins.

It starts simply enough. Just like I outlined above, a friend of a friend was really looking to try out a new site because he did a basic search and found a wonderful new site that offered some screaming deals. He was more than happy to try them out. The site was a little shoddy, but it was new so that seemed forgivable. The delivery time wasn’t great, but he figured you get what you pay for, and he could afford to be patient. They claimed to have plat at 500 for $10, and with that kind of savings he was okay waiting a week for delivery. He placed the order and thought it was nice they didn’t hassle him with a confirmation call. He quickly bought a money order for $50 and sent it off to the po box listed, then sat back and waited.

Here are a few things that should have raised some red flags for him. First and foremost, there is no way any site is offering that good a deal on plat. Even Toonstorm, where I usually shop, never goes below $100 for that much plat.

Next, a week long delivery time? Really? Where do they have to go for this plat, the moon? The longest I’ve ever seen anywhere is 48 hours, and that’s an outside figure. Sorry, that just doesn’t fly in my book.

Third and biggest – no confirmation call! Not even a live chat option! That little field where you filled out your character name? Yeah, they aren’t even reading it at this point. It’s there for show.

Finally, and possibly the greatest cardinal sin of buying plat, HE SENT A MONEY ORDER! Never, ever, under any circumstances should you use that method of payment. You may as well eat the cash. You’ll get more out of it that way. Pay pal or credit cards only, please.

Needless to say, that week went by and he didn’t hear from them. Now it’s been 3 weeks, and the site doesn’t even exist anymore, typical of a good scam.

Words to the wise folks. Be careful

Some of you are veterans and don’t need me telling you anything. In that case, feel free to stop reading and tune in next time, same bat time, same bat channel. For the rest of you, read on.

If you’re going to buy wow account, do some research first. Google to get a few sites that look good, then google them to see if they’re actually legit. The review information on any given site is rarely accurate because they can tailor it to whatever they want. You need good third party information. This can be a lengthy process because you need to weed out the flamers to get some really good insight into what a site is like.

This all leads me to point two: check for credentials. Most of the really good sites out there have been looked at by industry experts and rated. Take Toonstorm.com for example. They’ve consistently gotten excellent ratings from Bizrate and others over the years. For those of you who don’t know, Bizrate is an independant group that provides consumer ratings on a variety of products. They’re very reliable and extremely informative.

Next, try to stay local. While sites located outside the US can have some really great deals, there’s always the risk that they’ll take your money and run. There’s no real oversight on that sort of business. If they’re located within the US, they’re bound to US business laws and are easy enough and safe enough to work with. Besides, no one wants to see a repeat of what happened when Buy WoW Account dropped their 3.1 patch and nailed all of the Chinese outfits on the market.

Finally, only use sites that take easily-tracked payments. If they insist on money orders, you may as well be burning the cash. Credit cards and Paypal are perfectly safe for plat buyers no matter what claims they try to make.

I really hope this helps everyone.

I had a little time today so I figured I’d drop a little advice for you all. I figure it’s a good time for a refresher. Whenever a new expansion comes out there is a massive influx of newbies who really want to get into the game. This is really great for us, because it generates revenue for EQ, which means more updates and expansions in the future.

Some of the people who are coming in will have the same mentality as we all do, as well. They, like us, will be fed up with the pointless grinding and wasting time on getting enough plat to do any of the fun stuff out there. This is great, but some of them have never done anything like that before, which puts them at serious risk if they aren’t careful. Plus, if a bunch of newbies get busted it can increase scrutiny overall which makes plat buying more difficult for the rest of us.

So here’s a little primer on things to avoid when you’re buying plat for the first time.

First and foremost, don’t make a big deal out of your buy, especially in game. The GMs are monitoring chat at all times, after all. And even if they somehow miss you, another player who overhears is usually happy to write up a complaint. From there you end up with an account review and a possible suspension or banning. Not good at all.

Next, be picky about who you buy from. There are plenty of places out there, but not all of them have the same security policies that others do. Toonstorm, for example, has a really good track record. I’ve never had a handoff go sour with them, and the GMs have never even noticed me.

The next thing to worry about is volume. If you start picking up tons and tons of plat but are a low level character, that puts you on the radar. Usually they won’t do anything at that point, but they will start watching you. Then the second they see anything that doesn’t look quite right, they’ll nail you for it.

Next time I think I’ll drop some tips about how to be safe when buying the plat. It’s really easy to get scammed if you aren’t careful, and I’d want you to be able to do your own buying safely.

So, with the new expansion has come a new opportunity for me to write a review. A guildmate of mine has been wanting to make a few upgrades to his lineup, but hasn’t had the plat to make the change just yet. I clued him in to buying plat a while back, but he wasn’t sure he trusted the idea enough to risk his cash or his character. With SF out he finally started seeing just how much time he could be saving himself with even a single buy.

He and I sat down and started pulling up a few sites to see what he felt comfortable with. Of course there were thousands to look through what with the new expansion, so we had to take a little time to weed out some of the obvious fakes.

That left us with three choices. After looking things over for a few minutes he settled on Toonstorm.com. He liked their layout, their prices were better than the other two, and their delivery times were faster. That last had him worried until I told him that I like to buy wow account from them too, and have never had a problem.
So next he hops into live chat to verify the order. The rep there was really friendly and gave him an eta of about an hour for his plat. My friend logs on and starts lining up what he wants to buy with it. He’s only at that about 30 minutes when the delivery is ready.

There you have it. Another great review for Toonstorm.