Top 5 reasons people are addicted to Second Life

By guest blogger Clark Bell

Second Life is your chance to have, well, a second life. Call it, a way to create an alter ego for yourself in the virtual world and try all things that you otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to do in your real life. For those who are uninitiated into the workings of Second Life; it is an online video game that allows you to create a new ‘you’ in the cyber world, in a place that is totally alienated from your real surroundings, existing only in the form of graphics and in the imaginations of the players. Second Life came into existence on 23rd June 2003 and was created, developed, and designed by Linden Lab. In the Second Life world, you can do all that you do or wanted to do in your real world. Talk, walk, play, entertain, conduct business, buy properties, find love, and even have sex. There is a surreal economy with functioning businesses and a thriving real estate market with ‘Linden Dollar’ being the official currency. Players can create an identity for themselves through avatars and go around living in the other world the way they choose to live. And for you to have a second chance at life, all that is needed is to download a free client program called the Second Life Viewer apart from meeting the basic system requirements.

Who would want to miss out on a chance to have a second life, for free? Nobody, except people like Bill Gates or other successful celebrities that have made it big in real life and would prefer living in this world in comparison to the one in cyber space. The problem is…Second Life has also brought with it a lot of problems for people in real life. The main problem, as in most online games, is addiction. There has been a lot of opposition to Second Life, lately, and there are many gamers, themselves, who are coming out in the open complaining about their addiction problems. Along with World of Warcraft, Second Life must rank as one of the most addictive games available now. There are numerous stories doing the rounds on the Internet about people losing jobs, boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands on account of addiction to Second Life. In short, many people seem to lose their first lives or real lives in their quest for second lives.

So, what makes Second Life so addictive? Though there could be myriad of reasons, we’ve just listed 5 we think top the list.

• Second Life offers you a chance to rewind time. It offers you the chance to roll back your life to a stage from where you can start doing things exactly the way you wanted, leaving no room for mistakes. In short, Second Life offers you a perfect life otherwise impossible in the real world.



• The Second Life is a surreal world that is non-judgmental and lets you live life the way you choose to, without censorship.



• Making friends, finding love, and meeting your materialistic goals are much easier in Second Life in comparison to real life.



• Boredom, dissatisfaction, depression, loneliness, emotional insecurity, personality flaws, and too many expectations in real life can force one to seek all the answers in Second Life, which offers everything to a person looking for all answers to his or her imperfect life.



• Second Life is an endless game, where there is no end and no definite winners. You can keep playing the game or living in the other world until such time you cease to exist in the real world. In Second Life, events are controlled by the players and not by fate or destiny.

The problem with most people whose real life has been affected by Second Life is that they fail to spot the boundaries between their real life and second life disappearing in the background while they’re playing. When the real world and cyber world merge to form a single world, it creates problems for people who cannot discriminate between the real and surreal. As long as Second Life is treated just as a game, and not as a place where you can exist infinitely making your own rules for life, it’s just as good and as bad as any other online video game.

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Allods Online: First 3 Hour review

Allods Online won game of the year in Russia. Now it's gotten a translation and localization touch for English speakers. The game if free-to-play with a cash shop planned for launch. It entered closed beta for the US on Nov. 10. I got my beta key e arrive by email a few weeks ago because I signed up long ago on the GPotato website.

My PC (somewhat middle of the road):
Pentium Core Duo 2.93Ghz
Windows 7 32bit
4GB 1066MHz RAM
GeForce 8600GT 256MB video card
1TB 7200RPM Segate HDD

Download & Install
Allods uses Peer-2-Peer program Pando Media Blaster to download the 2.2GB installation file. You must uninstall the Peer-2-Peer software manually when you are done with your download if you do not wish to retain it. After installation and all patches, Allods uses 2.21GB on my machine.

Character Creation
Pick from League or Empire factions. Can only play one side on a server. Only one beta server for US at the time of this writing.

I spent a good two minutes looking at the character creation page thinking it was a loading splash page. You see a portrait of the two factions fighting with representatives from each race and class. You click on one of the combatants to enter the character creation page, where you can tweak the races and classes.

League races are Gibberling (furry little creatures that come in a three pack, as in you are three things at once), Elf, and a race of humans known as Kanian.

Empire races include Orcs, Arisen (undead), and a brand of humans called Xadaganian.

Some races get different versions of the same archetype.

Warrior Classes

• Kanian Champion (League)
• Gibberling Brawler (League)
• Xadaganian Vanquisher (Empire)
• Orc Brute (Empire)

Scout Classes

• Kanian Ranger (League)
• Gibberling Trickster (League)
• Xadaganian Stalker (Empire)
• Orc Head Marauder (Empire)

Healer Classes

• Kanian Cleric (League)
• Elf Priest (League)
• Xadaganian Inquisitor (Empire)
• Arisen Heretic (Empire)

Paladin Classes

• Kanian Crusader (League)
• Gibberling Templar (League)
• Xadaganian Avenger (Empire)
• Orc Reaver (Empire)

Warden Classes (pet casters I think)

• Kanian Druid (League)
• Gibberling Animist (League)
• Orc Shaman (Empire)

Mage Classes

• Kanian Magician (League)
• Elf Archmage (League)
• Arisen Sorcerer (Empire)

Summoner Classes

• Elf Demonologist (League)
• Xadaganian Defiler (Empire)
• Arisen Savant (Empire)

Psionicist Classes

• Gibberling Seer (League)
• Xadaganian Mentalist (Empire)
• Arisen Occultist (Empire)

I picked Arisen Sorcerer over on the Empire side.

Starting en media res
As my character loaded I heard someone speaking over an intercom about a battle that was going on. I saw the type of door you see on submarines (with the wheel to seal it) and deduced I was on some type of ship. And with an loud speaker, it was clear the world has some level of technology beyond what we see in most fantasy games.

After two quick quests to equip a weapon and drink a temporary battle buff, our room was breached by some League invaders. I helped a group of NPCs (4 or 5 of them balanced among Empire races and class archetypes) fend off the intruders by talking out the League squad leader. Then I was sent with my NPC group to get control of the adjacent room.

Among the wounded, I found one scientist who knew the attack was no random act of violence between the warring factions. The ship I was was carrying some top secret military project of great importance, though the scientist would not say what. He had me take an activation key from a safe to go see the 1st commander.

On my way to the engineering (it might have been the bridge, but I think I saw an engine when I got there), I passed the gunnery. I saw NPC members of the Empire firing old fashioned-looking cannons that emitted lasers at an airship off of the starboard bow. The gunmaster was barking orders, the intercom was blaring about the position of the League ship, and just then a massive cannon burst from our adversaries blasted the cannon and gunner furthest from my door. The shrapnel also took out the NPC manning the middle cannon.

The gunmaster stopped me in my tracks and told me I wasn't going anywhere near the bridge until I manned the empty cannon, so I fired a few salvos until the enemy ship's weapons were disabled.

Finally I made it to the 1st Commander, but his room was in dire straits. Some League troopers had erected a force field around what looked like a warp core engine at first glance. Several of my Empire brethren (NPCs) were caught within and getting slaughtered. The 1st Commander was shouting something about the League bastards trying to steal the device. He handed me a disrupted and ordered me to fire at the force field.

After firing the device for a while, the force field collapsed, but it was already too late. A League commander had stolen the device and all of our crew inside the bubble were dead. The 1st Commander decided it was time to tell me the truth. The device we'd just let get away was some kind of teleporter. Our scientists were working on ways to teleport individual soldiers in and out of enemy locations. The ramifications for the war were huge (shades of Star Trek: Voyager).

The 1st Commander ordered me up to the deck to retrieve our technology. He gave me a disruptor to stop the enemy commander's force field.

I opened the door to the deck and noticed something massive and sky blue to my right--but we were fighting during dusk. As I mouse looked over and up (up, up, up!), my jaw dropped. A massive (and I mean MASSIVE) level 40 demon was looking at our ship from the starboard bow. I stood gaping stupidly for a few seconds while I heard thuds and cracks and snapped to attention to see some League invaders were wailing on me. I dispatched them as quickly as possible, but I failed to get a screenshot in the rush of the battle (sorry).

It seems like another NPC on the deck explained that the enemy commander had escaped. He told me to use the activator key I had recovered earlier. He said it would have enough energy to teleport me to the League ship. If I recovered the device, I'd be able to come back.

When I arrived on the enemy ship, I saw their commander facing off against the giant demon, The deck was crawling with League henchmen, but the demon summoned a cluster of spawn to dispatch them. Even so, the demon spawn turned on me the moment the felled one of the League foes.

When the deck was cleared of all but the commander, I braced myself for what would surely be a big battle. He had a smaller, personal version of the bubble around himself, which the demon was blasting with an energy bolt. Try as I might, I could not attack the commander or get past the energy shield. Then I remembered the disruptor! One shot blasted his defenses and the energy bolt from the demon decimated him instantly.

I had recovered the teleporter prototype, but I was fearful of what the demon might--and then I was somewhere else. The teleporter had taken me out!

Heading to the City
I had teleported to the sewers beneath a major Imperial city. I was the 69th person to attempt to use a teleporter, but I was the first to arrive fully intact both physically and mentally. I was a war hero and a walking scientific breakthrough. Project Salvation was now 100% operational. The scientists just needed to be able to recreate all of the factors that led to my successful teleportation.

Enough Teasing
I'll stop there. I did quite a bit more in my first 3 hours, but I think you get the idea.

Graphics
Allods has solid graphics. It is a bit reminiscent of WoW in its bright palette and UI. But the technology aspect I think goes beyond WoW. I mean, I leaned that Arisen have some sort of cybernetics built into their limbs from one NPC.

Here are some pics I took and a link to a larger size. I am running the game in 1280 x 1024, but I resized to 800 x 640 for Photobucket and half that for these forums.

Fight with elemental in one sector of town:



Bigger version

Me fighting with a City Crow, a menial task tied into lore in a handy way:



Bigger version

What happens when an Arisen uses the /sleep command? This!



Bigger version

Combat
As I am only level 5, I cannot be expected to...well, okay.

By level 5, my Sorcerer had 4 spells, the first three of which came automatically.

Flame Arrow - Cast 1.5 seconds, range 40. Basic DD fire spell. Animation is my character using conjuring motions to gather fire into his palms and then clapping his hands to "squirt" out an arrow of fire.

Icy Stream (not exact) - Cast 3 seconds, range 40. A high mana cost, low damage spell that completely encases the mob in ice and reduces movement speed to a crawl. Effect lasts 5 seconds, and shard of ice crack off of the mob with each tick. Using a fire spell on a mob under this effect has a chance to cancel it entirely. Animation is a constant stream of snow coming out of my palm and sticking to the mob to turn to ice.

Shocking Grasp (not exact) - Cast instant, range 2. This is a basic thunder spell that does about half the damage of Flame Arrow. I think it has a chance to stun or interrupt the mob. Animation is my character slamming his palm down on an enemy with energy crackling all around.

Icy Grave (not exact) - Cast 3 seconds (?), range 25 (40?). This spell takes a while to get off but was worth the talent points I spent on it. This is the basic root spell, and it lasts up to 20 seconds. Breaks instantly on damage. Animation is conjuring gestures for almost all of the cast time and then a snow drift falling from the sky to bury the mob. Very clear visual for group situations.

I saw pet classes with skeletons to fight for them. I saw some casters using poison bolts. One caster showed me a spell where he summoned a bat that flew over to attack his opponent. I have brutish Orcs slamming the ground to set off a cascade of sparks and lithe humans using some technique that slices with multiple blades. Spell animations look terrific.

Depth of Combat

Besides being pretty, combat in Allods is deep. It took me a while to catch on, but casting spells builds up entropy for my Sorcerer. Each time I cast a fire spell, I get one Fire Force point built up for 12 seconds. If I cast a second fire spell before the timer winds down, my counter goes up to two and the timer resets at 12. now, if I cast an ice spell, it removes one counter from the Fire Force but adds one counter of Ice Force. Lightning removes Ice. Fire removes Lightning.

What happens if I build up too much entropy? Well, I can get a counter to 5 with no effect. After a counter reaches 5, casting a spell of the same element produces a random effect. I might be healed or damaged. I might get mana back or get mana drained. I might get faster recast on spells from that element, or all spells of that element could be unavailable for 12 seconds.

the mechanic adds quite a bit of strategy to battles. "I am at 5 Fire. Do I reduce the counter with Ice or do I throw Fire again and try to get a free heal?"

Meanwhile, XP builds very slowly from kills. A level 4 mob gave me 26 of ~8000 XP needed to reach level 6. Quests seem to be the source for XP even early on. Still, there is a weird XP mechanic tied to battles. You build XP and Fatigue. Visit a Goblin Innkeeper to rest, and you can convert your Fatigue to XP. I converted 3 dots of Fatigue into 900 XP at the beginning of level 5.

So you CAN grind for XP if you visit a Goblin Inkeeper. But beware; if you build up too much Fatigue, you cannot cash in for that level. You have to level up first and reset the counter. Or so the NPC tells me.

Character Advancement
Finally, level ups are rewarded with attribute points and talent points.

The attributes are plentiful (12-14 different ones), but the key ones for your class have a star by them. My Sorcerer benefits from Intelligence to deal more damage, Luck to get critical hits, and Wisdom (?) to get mana. Mana has not been an issue yet for me, so I have been pumping a stat that reduces the chance a mob will resist my spells. Two other attributes reduce my chance of taking a crit or raise hit points. Lots of stat choices. 1 point per level to spend so far, but I may be getting class bonuses at level up, too.

I used one talent point early on to upgrade Flame Arrow. I used my next 3 at level 5 to buy Icy Death. As you can see, it can take more than one point to unlock or advance a skill.

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World of Warcraft: Dominate the Auction House with Auctionator

When it comes to making money on the Auction House, Auctionator is the best tool you can learn to use. Let's start by making sure you have the right version of Auctionator installed properly.

Head to Curse Gaming and find the Auctionator Addon, when I wrote this guide it was at http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/auctionator.aspx. There are two options, automatic install and manual install. I have used both but I would recommend automatic install. If you use automatic install, Curse will have you install a program called Curse Client. It will run in your system tray and allow you to quickly and efficiently update your addons without knowing how they work.

Otherwise, if you choose to use manual install, you will have to download updated versions manually when new patches come out. If you choose this option, download and extract the contents of the zip file from Curse into your World of Warcraft/Interface/Addons directory:

Once the Auctionator folder is inside your World of Warcraft/Interface/AddOns folder you can load up World of Warcraft (restart it if it's still running) and it will be installed.

Knowing Prices
The first and most important point I'm including in this section is that knowing prices is THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect to making gold with Auctionator. Auctionator DOES NOT tell you prices (although it gives you SOME informational tooltips), only you can figure these out. It takes awhile to get a feel for each market, and you might make a few mistakes learning it. This is not something I can teach you. I can't tell you that Frozen Orbs will sell between 60-80g consistently or that Dream Shards sell above 20g pretty well so if you see them lower buy them. This is only true for the realms I play on and at the time I wrote this section.

I'm also not going to keep these price estimates updated as time goes by, since they will inevitably fluctuate. There is also no right answer when you ask what is a Dream Shard worth. This is dependent on too many variables, what day of the week it is, what time of the day, how many people are playing, if it's Super Bowl Sunday, etc. Once you get a feel for the prices you'll realize that prices are dependent not only on the current market but also on the amount of time you're willing to spend finding a buyer. If you post Dream Shards up for 10g they will sell in minutes. You can sell a single Dream Shard at 30g and it will probably sell but it will take a week or more to find a buyer. The skill here is watching the prices, logging on and posting your inventory at the right time in the right quantities depending on how fast you want to liquidate it.

When Dream Shard demand rises above supply the Auction House will start to get depleted and prices will rise. If you're paying attention you can post remaining inventory at higher prices and they will sell, instead of undercutting the cheapest post.

The Shopping List
The Shopping List is an amazing feature that you've got to be aware of. Every time you do a search with Auctionator it saves the term in the left side, (which is called Recent Searches) and it saves the term even if it's a typo :(. Next time, all you have to do is click on the name of the item on the left and it will automatically search for the item and list the results in the appropriate format! You don't even need a keyboard to make hundreds of gold in a sitting with Auctionator.

'Recent Searches' gets pretty packed, pretty quick. It keeps the most recently and most popularly searched items at the top so the typos and less often search items sink down. It's even more effective to keep Shopping Lists of your favorite items. This way when you login you can load up your Shopping Lists to remember the hot items you have been tracking, you won't forget to look at Dream Shards or Small Dream Shards because they'll be right there. And best of all, you won't need a keyboard :).

Here is what it looks like, I created a fake test list to protect the innocent:

Buy Buy Buy

The buy feature in Auctionator is amazing. It will search, sort and organize all the auctions for a specific item. The best part is that it even shows how many items are in each price range. For instance it will say: 3 stacks of 20 or, for example, 20 stacks of 1; this tells you a lot.

After you click on the Buy tab, all you have to do is either type in the search term or click on one of the items on the left bar. The left bar is automatically populated with recent searches or manually populated with items if you're viewing a shopping list. Play around with the interface to get a feel for how it works.

The coolest thing is that it makes it so easy to buy a ton of auctions. All you have to do is click on the row with the price that you want to pay and click buy in the bottom right. It will then prompt you asking how many of the stacks you want to purchase. This is how I start out most of my auction sessions. I use my recent searches on the left (or shopping lists) to search for my favorite items. When I see the right prices I'll buy them out and post them higher.

Sell Sell Sell

The Sell tab is the most useful part of Auctionator. Instead of selling things individually, calculating and entering the values for each item, you can rapidly sell dozens of an item in a matter of seconds. Once you have the Sell tab selected, you just drag the item from your inventory into the Auction Item box in the top left. You can see here I put up my 149 Relic(s) of Ulduar. Auctionator will automatically load the list of matching items in the right column and let you select which position you want to sell them at.

I had a friend who didn't know he could select the price on the right side, he thought that Auctionator always undercut the lowest price. I showed him how to do this and he was extremely pleased. In the screen shot below I will probably post the Relics above the 2g 11s or maybe above the Relics for 2g 0s. Either way, all I have to do is select the price that I want to undercut and it will calculate the new individual and total prices.

Once you have the price highlighted you can select the duration of your auction. Always keep track of what the deposit is, if this goes too high you might need to lower your price to ensure that the auction will sell before the time expires. Finally, click either Create Auction, which, if possible, will sell everything in 1 stack or select Create Multiple Auctions and it will bring up this dialog:

This dialog lets you post auctions in the stack size that you want. For Dream Shards I would mostly do 5-10 stacks of 1, in this case I will do a 1 stack of 100 Relic(s) of Ulduar since this stack size sells very good.

Big Stack Small Stack

A lot of people post large stacks of high volume items at low prices so that they will sell quickly. It almost seems like they do this so people like me can pickup the stack, split it up and repost it for a profit. Who else is going to buy, for example, 20 Frozen Orbs for 50g each? All 3 tabs in Auctionator are really good ways to hunt down big stacks. You can even do this from the default search screen, but I don't recommend EVER using that (unless Auctionator starts saying there are no auctions and if that happens then logout or switch auction NPCs. Here's what a really good big stack looks like for Dream Shards:

This guy posted 80 Dream Shards at 17g each. I had already bought 1 stack and sold 12 of them for 24.55 and after this screenshot I bought the rest. These have been consistently selling for 22-30g on my realm, so I'm very confident that I will be able to sell them. So for a 1360g investment I can immediately start posting these up at the positions I want, and I don't have to wait for prices to adjust to make my profit. I'll probably sell these over the next several days for a total of, AT LEAST, 1800g for a nice ~440g profit.

It's good to keep stack size in mind when posting or buying. Imagine a scenario where you want to post 5 Dream Shards and the cheapest price listed is 17g. You need to look at that 17g listing and see how big the stack is. If it says 1 stack of 20, or 2 stacks of 20, you don't need to go that low with your price. Most people who buy things like Dream Shards don't buy stacks of Dream shards they buy individuals. They will search for the cheapest individually priced Dream Shard and buy that one. The above image is a good example of this. I'll post 5-10 Dream Shards at 24g 24s right after I buy them for 17g each.

However, THIS IS NOT TRUE FOR ALL ITEMS; particularly I've noticed that Relic(s) of Ulduar sell better in large stacks (of course so does cloth, ore, bars, herbs, etc). This is probably because people want to buy large even numbers for turn ins. I've been buying ALL RELICS for <1g>

Splitting and Combining Cosmic Essences
Watching Cosmic Essences is fun. At the time I write this Greater Cosmic Essences (Greaters) sell from 11-18g consistently. Lessers sell for 3-8g each. Do the math and you'll see these match up pretty well. But the fun part is that they don't always match up, in fact they actually hardly match up in my experience. In the last week alone I've seen Lessers selling for 3g each and Greaters selling for 15g, that's a 6g profit. It's not a ton but it's a really good thing to throw into the mix. This works both ways, you can find Greaters for sale for 12g buy them and split them and 20 minutes later sell them for 5g 50s each (I did this today!). Why would anyone buy a Greater Essence for 15g when there's a stack of Lessers for sale for 3g each? Who knows these things?

Closing Spreads
I call it a spread when items get listed with a large range of prices as a result of several poorly planned undercuts. Here's a hypothetical example of what I mean. Let's say you search for Dream Shards and see (5x1 means 5 stacks of 1):

10x1@24g
5x1@23g
12x1@22g <--- SPREAD TOP 1x1@21g
1x5@20g
1x1@19g
3x1@18g <--- SPREAD BOTTOM

What we see here is that the 1x5 stack isn't an individual stack so most buyers aren't going to buy this stack. So now we see the spread a little different, 3 items are blocking the price at 18g, 1 is sitting at 19g, the one at 20g isn't going to sell to most buyers and there is only 1 at 21g. What you can do here is buy the 5 individual Dream Shards at 18g, 19g and 20g and repost them either at 21g 90s or competitively somewhere higher on the stack. This might seem obscure or unlikely, maybe it seems obvious to you (that's good) my point is that sometimes items are priced lower than they seem. In this example the 18g Shards are a steal, ESPECIALLY considering the range that Dream Shards usually sell.

You really have to look at stack sizes and the quantity of items that are selling at the prices to determine how much you can afford or risk to move to higher prices. Just last night I saw Abyssal Crystals in a similar setup, however the price differences were in 5g segments so it was a much better deal. I was able to buyout all the individual Abyssal Crystals below 100g and repost them all and sell them all that night. I believe my total investment there was about 400g and I resold them for just a little less than 500g. If I hadn't bought out the low posted Crystals the perceived value of the Crystals would have stayed well below 100 gold and I wouldn't have been able to sell the others that high. Here's a real example, notice where the REAL value of Shards is:

Watching Your Existing Auctions
After you've posted everything and spent 20-30 minutes shopping, buying, selling and making numerous trips from the mailbox and back you've got to remember to check your More tab. This will give you a recap of what you're doing. It will even show you if you're still holding the cheapest position with all the items you have posted (green check mark) or if you have been undercut (red X). Most of the time if you've been undercut it's not the end of the world, prices will adjust and your item will have its time. Notice how many Dream Shards I have up right now, I took this picture in the evening when everyone was posting so prices were dropping quickly, they'll come back up though.

Other times you might need to immediately repost your item and undercut the other guy. Items like Frozen Orbs, Abyssal Shards and lvl 213 epics might experience price inflation and you might know that's about as high as they are going to go. To milk that opportunity you need to undercut by a small amount keeping the price high but keeping the best position so that when a buyer comes around your item sells.

In times like this (when demand is lower than supply but the prices remain inflated), you want to keep the best position on the Auction House while prices adjust downward. Just because there are more sellers than buyers doesn't mean there aren't buyers who aren't going to wait for prices to adjust before making a purchase. There's a button on the bottom you can click to refresh all active auctions or you can select them individually and they will update.



No Deposit Items
You don't have to be an enchanter to make a ton off enchants. Items like Dream Shards, Small Dream Shards, Lesser & Greater Cosmic Essences, Abyssal Crystals and even Frozen Orbs (this isn't an all inclusive list, there are more!) have ABSOLUTELY NO DEPOSIT! That means you can post them at any price you want for up to 48 hours and not pay anything if they don't sell. You can even take them down if you want to reposition them. I don't know why Blizzard did this, maybe to create an economy just around these items, whatever the reason this is the best place to start for beginners to start playing the WoW market.

Start with a few items at a time, like Dream Shards and Greater Cosmic Essences, start watching them and learning how their prices move. If you're a risk taker, which you'll need to be in order to be really successful, buy a stack or a few low priced items and sneak them in at different prices.This way you can see that it's not only the lowest item that sells (well, it is, but during times of heavy buying an expensive Dream Shard will EVENTUALLY sell even though it wasn't posted as the cheapest). Posting your items in the cheapest spot isn't ALWAYS the best strategy, it's mostly for people who are impatient or have a lot of inventory. With no deposit items, you can play around without risking a deposit. It's also useful for high volume items you have a ton of and need to get rid of, just make sure you're making a suitable profit.

Adjusting Your Undercut
In the Auctionator menu (in the top right) there's an Undercutting menu. You've got to adjust your undercut. This won't only help you make money but it will help everyone else who is playing this game. Ever notice how prices step downward. For instance someone posts a Dream Shard at 30g, then someone posts one for 29g 90s, next someone for 28g, next 27g 90s, next 27g 80s, etc. The people who undercut by exactly 10s are probably using an addon, the people who undercut by a whole number of gold are both impatient, crazy and not using an addon. Now if everyone used an addon it would take 10 posters to undercut 1 gold (10 silver per poster). This isn't bad, but if everyone used an addon that undercut by only 1 silver instead of 10 it would take 100 posters to bring the price down by 1 gold. Of course that's pretty idealistic. Some people might say that if you don't lower the prices enough people won't buy, that's hogwash. Most people who need a Dream Shard for an enchant aren't going to shop around for it, they are just going to pay the cheapest price on the Auction House. When they do this, they get a warm fuzzy feeling inside because they think they got a great deal.

Here are the undercuts I use. This will instantly increase all of your profits.

Finding, Buying and Reselling Hot Items
Finding, buying and reselling hot items on the Auction House is one of the best things you can do with any character, regardless of it's level and with only a little bit of gold. The trick is to know which items will sell, how long they will take to sell and how much that buyer will pay. Some items, like specific greens, might appear to be worth only 10-25g but in reality a new level 68 Death Knight might have the bank to drop 150g on a chest piece with the right stats. Twinks will also buy some items for insane amounts, since your realm might only see a few of a specific item get posted every month. Disenchanters also have the ability to scan the Auction House and buy greens within certain level ranges below their disenchant value (see the Enchanting section for more details). Below I'm going to share the items that I watch for, and the approximate values they are worth.

My Favorite Hot Items (enchanting and crafting mats)
Dream Shards, Abyss Crystals and Frozen Orbs are my favorite items to watch. They regularly fluctuate in price and sell in high volume (read the Getting Started section above for more details on how to start tracking your realm's prices).Frozen Orbs sell in high volume and most buyers are impulsive. Players who finish a heroic after winning the roll on the Frozen Orb are impatient to sell and will usually sell way below market price. You can make 100g an hour ONLY buying Frozen Orbs in Trade Channel. You can find both Dream Shards and Abyss Crystals in bulk from enchanters who don't follow the market and know their price. Learn the prices of your realm and start advertising in trade that you buy. When the opportunities come around you can make some serious coin this way. Since Patch 3.2 came out Titanium Ore has sustained high volume and will drop very low when farmers return with their harvest (they are usually desperate to sell fast). You can still find farmers who will sell below the old price and you can turn around and sell at the new higher price.Even without farmers you can watch Titanium Ore like any other item. Titansteel Bars fluctuate just enough to be a good item to watch. You can also buy Eternal Fires, Shadows, Earths and Titanium and pay Miners for their Smelt Titansteel cooldown. In just an hour of advertising in trade you can make well over 100g paying people very little to smelt a half dozen Titansteel Bars. Make sure you buy the Eternals and Titanium when prices are low. Eternals are also easy to watch. Once you get a feel for how they fluctuate you can buy stacks of 20 at very low prices when farmers return with their harvest. I recently picked up over 80 Eternal Airs that were all priced at 2g 20s and resold them all between 8-12g each. Among the 6 Eternals, Eternal Fires are the best to watch since they fluctuate the most and spike above 25g.

Raid Bind on Equips
A lot of PUGs are running Naxx, Malygos, Obsidian Sanctum and even Ulduar these days, and when BoEs drop either the raid leader nabs them or they do a roll. Shortly afterwards you'll see a confused person in trade trying to sell a ilvl 200+ epic item. The secret is, they usually have no idea how much it is worth. To be honest, sometimes I don't, but that doesn't stop me from being the first person to offer them 500g, or 1000 gold after doing a quick wowhead search to confirm it's a valuable item. Whenever you see someone in trade selling a level 80 epic, check the iLvl, and if it's above or equal to 200 look up the item as quickly as possible and if you can, ask someone who plays the class who would equip it how good it is. If it's a BiS (best in slot) item, make a lowball offer and see if you can resell it. Always post these items with a different character than the one you trade with. Throw them up for 2-3x as much as you expect to get for them. Then, sit in trade with your trade character selling the same item offering to undercut the person who is selling it on the Auction House for the ridiculous price. Buyers will feel like they are getting a good deal and you'll be able to work down to a fair price.

Here's the WoTLK raid BoE lists, you should familiarize yourself with the lists when you have time:

• Ulduar Normal: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=105:2;crs=4273:2;crv=0:0#0-2+1
• Ulduar Heroic: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=106:2;crs=4273:2;crv=0:0
• Eye of Eternity (Malygos) Normal: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=105:2;crs=4500:2;crv=0:0
• Eye of Eternity (Malygos) Heroic:http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=106:2;crs=4500:2;crv=0:0
• Naxxramas Normal: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=105:2;crs=3456:2;crv=0:0
• Naxxramas Heroic: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=106:2;crs=3456:2;crv=0:0
• Obsidian Sanctum Normal: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=105:2;crs=4493:2;crv=0:0
• Obsidian Sanctum Heroic: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4:5:6;cr=106:2;crs=4493:2;crv=0:0

Twink Items
A twink is a character who stops leveling at a certain point, usually level 19 or 29, and collects the best piece of gear for each slot to fight in battlegrounds against other people in their level's bracket (level 10-19 or 20-29). Most people choose Hunters or Rogues to twink. Twink gear, the best stuff for levels 19 and 29, is worth tons given the right customer. Some items, like an Assassin's Blade, can fetch a price of 500g for someone's twink. Since a server might not see this item again for a long time, twinks will dump their wallet for a chance to have the best possible piece of gear for their level. The best way to find these is to search the Auction House for level 19:

The next challenge is identifying items that are undervalued before someone else does. You can use Auctioneer to show %s next to the price of each item (as discussed in the intro), this can help you pick out under-priced items to re-list. Otherwise, I've compiled some lists of items that I watch out for. Don't expect to find these items the first time you search the Auction House. I do these searches almost daily.

Here's a list of level 19 twink items. Keep in mind the average value column is an average over all realms, so this can vary on your realm and, in my experience, most items will sell for a lot more.

• Shadowfang 550g
• Assassin's Blade 250g
• Darkweave Breeches 150g
• Magefist Gloves 110g
• Mindthrust Bracers 100g
• Staff of the Blessed Seer 100g
• Twisted Chanter's Staff 90g
• Boahn's Fang 50g
• Ironpatch Blade 50g
• Keller's Girdle 50g
• Night Reaver 50g
• Sentry Cloak 50g

Here's a similar list for level 29 twinks:

• Burning War Axe 120g
• Vendetta 120g
• Gnarled Ash Staff 90g
• Vibroblade 80g
• Oscillating Power Hammer 50g
• Dense Triangle Mace 50g
• Staff of the Shade 50g
• Supercharger Battle Axe 45g
• Looming Gavel 40g
• Zealot Blade 40g

Level 40, 58 and 68 Greens
There are three more categories of gear that are very popular. The first is level 40 plate and mail. At level 40 Warriors and Paladins gain access to plate armor and Shamans and Hunters gain access to mail armor. This means that most characters will rush to the Auction House (if they didn't already in preparation of) to upgrade their level 30s mail to plate or leather to mail. So our job is to make sure that the prices accurately reflect the supply & demand curve (aka, we screw them by price gouging).

• Hunters upgrading to mail - of the Monkey
• Shamans upgrading to mail - of the Eagle, Falcon, Monkey
• Warriors upgrading to plate - of the Monkey or Tiger
• Paladins upgrading to plate - of the Eagle, Bear, Monkey or Tiger

The next big cut offs are level 58 & 68. Characters leveling through the 50s & 60s end up with really crappy gear compared to the Outland greens that open up at 58 and Northrend greens that open up at 68. Once they hit that level all bets are off because they gain access to all the greens that drop in Outland/Northrend. The stats on these greens are scaled entirely different and will make it possible for a level 58 to breeze through Hellfire Peninsula or a 68 to breeze through Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra. I purchase these greens, particularly the most popular of them, and resell them a lot higher.

You can tell the difference between an Outland item and an Old World item by it's iLvl (visible with ItemLevel AddOn or Auctioneer). Outland greens start at iLvl 84, You won't find a green from the Old World that high. The same applies for Northrend items, however those greens start at 130. The greens in Outlands go to about 111. You can't just buy out all greens though. I stick to suffix items because they are so easy to interpret and re-list. For example, you wouldn't want to try to resell cloth 'of the Falcon' since it has agility on it (what cloth wearer is going to use agility?). Neither would you want anything that is 'of the Wolf', since Wolf is a combination of Agility and Spirit. The most popular suffix items are 'of the Monkey' plate armor. The reason being, all three plate wearers, Paladins, Death Knights and Warriors can use this stuff.

In conclusion, purchase any level 58 or 68 leather/mail/plate of the Monkey/Tiger if it's price doesn't already reflect this increased demand. Be careful, make sure the stats reflect Outland or Northrend stats, don't accidentally buy a level 53 green of the monkey and try to resell it.

Rare Pets
A niche you may want to look into if you have the time is pets. Pets are very popular with many players and you can make decent profit by selling them on the Auction House. In the Leisure section of the guide buying holiday pets is discussed but in this section I'm going to talk about selling pets on the neutral Auction House. I should also note that often times you can sell your faction's pets on your Auction House because many players are too lazy to visit the vendor to buy it themselves, don't realize that the item is bought from a vendor, certain pets require certain faction or currency to be purchased that many players don't have, and because some are on limited supply vendors that must be farmed.

The pets in the tables below are some pets that you can buy from vendors and then sell on the Auction House if you choose to do so.

• Cat Carrier (White Kitten) - 150g - Lil Timmy in Stormwind City
• Mana Wyrmling - 60g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm
• Brown Rabbit Crate - 30g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm
• Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling - 25g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm
• Red Moth Egg - 25g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm
• Wood Frog Box - 25g - Flik in Terrokar Forest
• Cat Carrier (Siamese) - 15g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm
• Ancona Chicken - 5g - Magus Tirth in Thousand Needles
• Black Kingsnake - 5g - Xan'tish in Orgrimmar
• Blue Moth Egg- 5g - Sixx in The Exodar
• Brown Snake - 5g - Xan'tish in Orgrimmar
• Cat Carrier (Orange Tabby) - 5g - Donni Anthania in Elwynn Forest
• Cockroach - 5g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm or Jeremiah Payson in Undercity
• Crimson Snake - 5g - Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm or Xan'tish in Orgrimmar
• Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling - 5g - Jilanne in Eversong Woods
• Great Horned Owl - 5g - Shylenai in Darnassus
• Hawk Owl - 5g - Shylenai in Darnassus
• Prairie Dog Whistle - 5g -Halpa in Thunder Bluff
• Rabbit Crate (Snowshoe) - 5g - Yarlyn Amberstill in Dun Morogh
• Red Dragonhawk Hatchling - 5g - Jilanne in Eversong Woods
• Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling - 5g - Jilanne in Eversong Woods
• Tree Frog Box - 5g - Flik in Terrokar Forest
• White Moth Egg - 5g - Sixx in The Exodar
• Yellow Moth Egg - 5g - Sixx in The Exodar

There are a few pets that drop around the world. However, they are so ridiculously difficult to obtain that they are not worth farming, even though they sell for upwards of 1,000 gold. I wanted to include a list of these in case you see them under priced on the Auction House. If you do see them, do some quick research to make sure there drop rate hasn't been recently increased. Otherwise, pick them up and try to make bank off of them. Here's the list (I've excluded their source for simplicity):

• Disgusting Oozeling 3,500g
• Tiny Emerald Whelpling 2,200g
• Tiny Crimson Whelpling 1,500g
• Azure Whelpling 1,000g
• Captured Firefly 1,000g
• Cat Carrier (Black Tabby) 1,000g
• Black Whelpling 1,000g

How to Find your Own Niche to Sell
Finding your own niche is not as hard as it sounds. What you want to do here is start with everything you're knowledgeable with. For example, if you're a Blacksmith, you know exactly what you can make and you know exactly how much it should sell for...or maybe you don't and that's why you need to search for items you craft in the Auction House to see if anyone is selling them and how much they are selling for. You can do this with every profession you have.

Another way to find a niche is to base it off what you are currently doing in game. If you're doing daily quests and you recognize a quest requires a reagent that is in high demand by other players, see what that reagent is going for on the Auction House. Or maybe you run instances all day and you have Frozen Orbs or something else that drops in the instance and you can control those niches. Anything you regularly obtain or regularly sell gives you a huge advantage over other players when looking for your own niche to make money off of.

Let's say you've been farming Relics of Ulduar in The Storm Peaks to sell on the Auction House, well you are already aware of how much you get for them, so what's to stop you from buying out any of them that are cheap and reselling them. I'm just using these as examples, there's no limit to how many items you can control.

Some people on my server don't craft or even do anything in the game except check the Auction House. You'll find them buying out gear that they know is cheap just to resell it at a higher price. This one guy buys "of the champion" tanking gear from Wrath of the Lich King and resells it for over 100g a piece. Normal players who randomly obtain these items have no idea what their value is and when they list it in the Auction House for 10g he's already in there buying it and relisting it for a much higher price.

When you focus on things that you already know and do (area of competence), making gold is that much easier for you because you're always one step ahead of the competition.

Miscellaneous Strategies

Artificially Inflating Prices
This strategy involves using two or more characters in order to convince a potential buyer that an item is worth more than it actually is. In many of the crafting professions I've outlined specific pieces of gear that can be crafted and posted, in other cases I've talked about particular rare items which have prices that are very negotiable. These exclude items that are easy to obtain. A great example would be a bind on equip epic from normal Naxxramas, or the BoE epics that drop from heroic instances. The price might be difficult to gauge and if you begin negotiations with another player you'll want to make sure you have something to base your offer on. You can do this by putting the item on the Auction House using an alt with a different name. Put it up for, say, 2200g, and then advertise in trade that you're selling the same item for only 1500g (700g less than the Auction House), but only for a limited time because you need gold NOW! Alternatively, if you're quiet about it, a buyer might ask 'how much?' and you can respond with 'hold on, let me check the Auction House'. Keep this trick in mind when dealing with low supply/questionable valued items.

Pre-Patch Buyouts
On Tuesday's the servers oftentimes go down for maintenance or patch. When these servers go offline people aren't able to access anything, not even login. But you'll be surprised to learn that the Auction House doesn't stop ticking time away on the auctions. This means if you post an auction sometime before the server goes down, there will be a period of time when no one is able to buy it. So how does this work in your favor? Simple! If you know a patch day or maintenance day is coming, the night before or hours before the patch, you go into the Auction House and just bid on everything that's priced low. Not buyout, BID! It's important that you bid because the buyout price is usually significant higher than the bid price. If you find auctions that will expire before the server goes down no one else will be able to bid on that same item and best of all, if the person who posted the Auction didn't get a bid for what they wanted, they won't be able to login and cancel the auction. This means you can basically steal items for bid that are expiring prior to maintenance / patch days. This also means you shouldn't post auctions before these days because the same could happen to you!

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Diablo III Possibly Not a 2010 Release

Diablo III hopefuls may have to wait a little while longer.

Diablo III fans may have to wait just a bit longer to get their hands on the long overdue sequel to the popular Blizzard online RPG. According to Kotaku, Thomas Tippl, Activision Blizzard chief financial officer, explained in a New York presentation that Blizzard's lineup for 2010 includes the launch of StarCraft II and other plans for World of Warcraft, but Diablo III was listed under plans for the next few years rather than with the other 2010 content.

While the lineup confirms continued World of Warcraft support and a Starcraft II
launch in 2010 (with expansions to follow after), Diablo III was marked to be
released in 2011 at the soonest.

Read the full story here.

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You Only Live Twice

In the virtual world of Second Life, you can start a business, make (or lose) real money. Some of the worlds biggest companies are staking their territory there. They dont want to miss out on whats being touted as the Next Big Thing. But are the potentials of online worlds over hyped? This glossy documentary explores the bizarre frontiers of virtual worlds, taking a skeptical, sometimes humorous, look at their heavily marketed promise and their pitfalls.

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Is World of Warcraft Ruining MMOGs?

There’s no doubt that the game is changing the scene, and since its launch in 2004, the industry has taken many drastic turns. There are players who are utterly frustrated with today’s games, and yearn for earlier days, when playing solo through the entire level range was not an option, and players were forced to group if they wanted to progress. Forced grouping and slow leveling created a strong community, and many of these players now feel that that community feeling has been lost in today’s titles. Read our article, 'Bringing Back the Community through WAR' for more thoughts on the evolution of community and online gaming.

The bottom line though, is that massively multiplayer games need to be massively multiplayer, that is, they need subscribers, and lots of them.

Blizzard recognized this early with World of Warcraft, and in an attempt to maximize their subscribers, they made the game accessible. Accessibility not only meant it could run on virtually any home computer, but it also meant the game had to be an option for players who didn’t have hours at a time to commit to look for a group, or camp a rare spawn in order to get a quest item or equipment that they were after. Blizzard gave players the option of being able to play solo through the game, offering something for everyone, whether they had all day to play, or just a sporadic hour here and there.

While that model did prove to be extraordinarily successful, and the game quickly soaked up a lot of players from older games, as well as lure in millions of new players. But some of the older gamers resented that. Suddenly their thriving communities began to dwindle, and the only options they had left were to play the more popular game of World of Warcraft or continue to play another game, where, like ugly people in Hollywood, the community was slowly thinning in numbers.

There is a divide in player’s thoughts of the changes, and Game Designer, Andrew Krausnick, recognizes it.

“The community growth and WoW's game play shift has been so pronounced that there has been a push back from the original MMO denizens,” states Krausnick. “Most non-WoW MMOs often require a higher degree of commitment or learned expertise and are therefore generally considered more 'hardcore.' These MMOs frequently have vocal community members who respond defensively to any perceived movement towards 'WoWification' with the cry of 'go back to WoW, noob' (or some facsimile thereof). And while a general example, it is endemic of an unfortunate divide in the community at large. If the new people that WoW has brought to our slice of the gaming world are going to be a genre-wide boom, then both our MMOs and our communities must grow to cater to a wide spectrum of users.”

The player boom is large, make no mistake. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was behind EverQuest, which was widely accepted as one of the largest subscriber-based games at the beginning of the millennium. In early 2004, SOE divulged an approximate subscriber number of 430,000 players in their press release of Champions of Norrath.

Today, World of Warcraft has reached in excess of 11.5 million subscribers. That’s a pretty clear indication of the sheer size of growth the market has seen in the past five years, and it’s had its impact.


Krausnick continues, “MMO players were once a relatively niche segment of the game playing population (much less the general population), but with the launch and general acceptance of WoW, our hobby has begun a full court press on popular culture. What we're going to see is a generation of MMO players not limited to what would be considered 'traditional' gamers, but covering a much larger demographic. These MMOers are perpetuating and expanding the acceptance of the concept of participating in an MMO as a hobby - freely spending their leisure time simultaneously for digital entertainment and as a social outlet, and that is a powerful thing. WoW has simply, in terms of both growth and cultural mind share, had an impressive impact on the MMOG community.”

So, with all of these new players in the market, and more coming in, the effect on designing games from the core greatly changes, as Krausnick points out. Developers not only need to recognize there are players from different schools of thought, but they need to develop a firm plan from the get go.

Jørgen Tharaldsen, Creative Producer of Funcom states that “it also means that the bar is raised for the other MMO companies, and I don’t envy any newcomers entering parts of this market for the first time. Whatever is made is compared to the current feature set of World of Warcraft, and that is no easy thing to match. So I guess the game is on now, how to out-blizzard Blizzard?”


That really is what the game has become. As much creativity goes into these games, at the core, they are still a business, and need to do smart business in order to keep the games running, or none of us would have any games to play at all. So, from a business standpoint, what is the key to making a successful MMOG? Tharaldsen answers.

“I don’t think there are any easy answers to that if you are playing within the traditional fantasy MMO field, but there are so many other approaches opening up now. As such, I think Blizzard has shown the way for the ‘early’ mass-market potential of the genre, and as the MMO genre grows it evolves into countless other, successful variations.”

Mr. Tharaldsen is not alone in his thoughts that Blizzard has set a high standard. Company after company has tried to figure out the “secret formula” to make a successful MMOG. Some have failed, and some have done quite well. So what’s in the secret sauce? Is it a Blizzard secret that they keep heavily guarded in an effort to ruin the market for any heavyweight contenders? Hermann Peterscheck, Producer of NetDevil, currently developing the highly anticipated Jumpgate Evolution, doesn’t think so.

“Is Coke destroying the soft-drink landscape?" he asks. "Is Pixar destroying animated films? I think people like to target the big winner and right now WoW is the big winner. As a developer I think it’s much more important to focus on why companies like Blizzard dominate in the arenas they compete in. People talk about the 'secret sauce' of companies that produce hit after hit. I don’t think it’s a secret at all. Hits are the result of lots of dedication and focus. World of Warcraft is successful because it’s an incredibly well made game. Blizzard will tell anyone that the 'secret sauce' is working hard, testing and getting all the details right. In fact, entertainment companies that dominate in their industries follow that same pattern, as do professional sports teams and music groups. I honestly feel that Blizzard earned their success with WoW. Sure, maybe they had good timing, maybe they were lucky… but at the end of the day they made an awesome product. I would rather try and compete by making an awesome product as well.”

Competition is the name of the game, as Peterscheck points out. And with so many competing products now, players can really start to see some unexpected advantages. One gamer from our community, Anacche, recognizes this fact, and appreciates it for what it is.

“By raising the bars so high, it has definitely made the industry a tougher one to crack. If a game does not offer something amazing, everybody goes crawling back to WoW or worse still, the project fails either at, or even before launch. Those games that do manage to keep up however leave their followers in absolute awe.

“WoW has seen its fair share of competitors rise and fall, some have stuck around in the shadows, but in the end none of them have toppled WoW. The reason being that now you have to come up with more than just one new fantastic innovation (RvR, PQs, or Sex and Violence anyone?) to draw lasting attention. You have to match, or better WoW on each of its grounds - PvP, PvE Casual, PvE normal, PvE Hardcore, and then come up with your own innovations to top it and get the initial attention.

“After four solid years, WoW has shown that you also have to design your content with longevity in mind.

“In some ways, WoW's quality has made it unfairly hard on other developers. Some might call that a great wake-up call, some would call it monopolizing the market; everyone would agree, it's going to take something big to even nudge WoW.”

Whether unfair or not, the competition is there, and as Anacche explains, we are starting to see more and more innovative ideas come to our games. The competition and the massive subscriber base have pushed the evolution of online gaming forward at a staggering pace. We can take great satisfaction in knowing that the evolution is moving forward, which can only lead to good places in the end.

This growth is not unlike any other growth spurts either. While we face the puberty of massively online gaming, we can expect more bruises and pains along the way. These pains come in various forms, from incomplete rushed games trying to compete, to the afore-mentioned divide in the community at large.

“In short, the extreme success of WoW has both expanded and also divided the MMOG community, and the growth is certainly positive but the transition is not complete. It is up to both our community members and our developers to create spaces which are welcoming to broad audiences. It is imperative that we both promote a myriad of play styles as well as accept social atmospheres if we're going to make the most of this opportunity and deliver MMOGs to their birthright as truly massive entertainment,” Krausnick concludes.

So will we ever see a return of the old style of game? Probably not. Like childhood, it’s something we cannot experience again no matter how alluring it may be. But has World of Warcraft ruined MMOGs? It’s pushed us into a bit of a pimply, hormonal stage with plenty of conflict, personal and peer, but the question can only be answered by the individual player.

The direction of the future, though, is up to all of us as a community of gamers, developers and publishers to decide.

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Star Trek Online Trailer: The Glory Of The Klingon Empire

ust when you thought you'd seen enough Star Trek Online space combat videos to keep you satisfied for a day or two, Cryptic Studios whips out a Klingon focused trailer that's sure to get your Pepto Bismol colored blood beating through those hardened, warrior-like veins.

That's right, Klingons are in this game! We almost forgot with all that Federation love coming from Cryptic ever since the game was announced. But that's okay, because Klingon's are accustomed to waiting in secrecy for the right moment to strike. This is only the first small disruptor blast in what's sure to be a volley of ferocious strikes far greater than any puny Federation ship could hand.

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