Now that Blizzard has confirmed that beta keys from Blizzcon 07 and Worldwide Invitation 08 will be used to get into the Wrath of the Lich King test, they've become a pretty hot commodity. Sure they're for sale on eBay ranging from about $200 to $600, but what are they worth. I kind of wish I'd been able to go to one of those events to guarantee a spot in the beta. This same thing happened during the beta release of the Burning Crusade.

Cheesytacos of Dragonblight thinks it's unfair to folks who win the beta lottery that folks are selling their beta keys for profit. For those willing to part with their keys, the sale price is at least worth the price of admission. I have to admit, it's well, annoying that folks who went to Blizzard's little soirées are granted passes into the new content. We come across the issue of property ownership many times in WoW.

In general the assumption is that all things WoW are not actually the property of the players but of Blizzard. Are beta keys the property of the key holders to do with what they please until activation?

In what may or may not be good news today from the Blizzard Store, it looks like the Blizzard Authenticator was back on sale for a short time. It sold out rather early, and there was some rockiness with some orders, but it looks like Blizzard's at least trying to get back on track in delivering this extra layer of account security. Unfortunately, although it was showing as purchasable just an hour ago, it once again shows up as Sold Out currently.

There's no word yet on whether they've fixed any problems with keeping the Authenticator in stock, so it may be that they simply got in one shipment and are waiting for another. Hopefully, that shipment comes soon and they can work out their stocking problems a little more permanently. Until then, I'd sit tight and wait a bit. At the least, you don't want to be like the poor folks tipster Aaron pointed out to us, who are bidding up to $93.00 for one on eBay.

Thanks to everyone who sent us a heads up on this!

You may remember that we recently told you that Worldwide Invitational attendees would be receiving a Tyrael pet as part of their goodie bag haul as soon as patch 2.4.3 went live. The PTR servers when down for a little bit of an update a while ago, and when they came back up, WoW Insider commenter Darkra came through with the picture of my new favorite pet, which you can see above.

It's actually pretty strange, he looks both cute and bad ass at the exact same time. I'm not sure how it pulls it off, but I suppose that's just the awesomeness that is Tyrael. Congratulations to all you WWI attendees on what is surely the coolest non-combat pet to date, and for those of us unlucky enough not to make it to the WWI in person, let the Ebaying begin!

Here's an eBay auction that might be worth watching: A rather spiffy looking bronze statue of an Orcish Wolf Rider. While the statue looks pretty awesome on its own, what's intriguing is the source: the seller claims that this is the statue created exclusively for Blizzard by WETA employed sculptors Eden Small and Daniel Cockersell. You may recall this article in the OC Register (Alex Ziebart reported on it for WoW Insider here), which mentions the commission of a 12 foot high version of this statue for the courtyard of their new headquarters, to be installed this summer.

Certainly, the statue looks pretty good, and it has an impressive pedigree. Daniel Cockersell himself has also created some pretty good looking Warhammer sculptures, and Small and Cockersell have also worked together on official merchandise for the upcoming Prince Caspian Movie and Doctor Who, among other things.

I'm not sure I'll have the money to get in on this auction, since I imagine it'll get pretty high, but I do sort of want to head down to Irvine this summer just to drool over the larger version. I'm sure it'll look pretty sweet if this smaller statue is any indication.

I have to admit to being curious as to which Blizzard employee decided they'd rather have a bit of extra pocket money instead of the statue, though, or if there's another reason that this statue has appeared on eBay, and from a seller in Ireland, at that.

[Thanks for the tip, Lim!]

For some reason on my home server, Eldre'Thalas, when folks see a tank standing around in Shattrath without anything to do, they immediately start sending tells asking if I want to go tank such-and-such an instance for them. I don't mind it when my friends or guild mates do it, but it does get a little annoying when complete strangers do it constantly.

So I've come up with a solution: spirit and intellect armor. Whenever I'm doing anything other than fighting, I'm wearing bright yellow spirit and intellect armor that I got off the AH. I spent about a hundred gold on this dastardly set. It looks awful, it smells awful, and it's a great repellent for annoying unsolicited LFG tells.

I got the idea from looking at people's gear who are apping to my guild. Some of it was just plain nuts – spirit gear on Warriors, "of stamina" gear on Priests, things like that. Of course, they might have just been logged out in that gear the same way I'm logged out in mine right now. But when you're apping to a guild and one of the requirements is to log out in PvE gear for the next week, well, too bad so sad for them.

The Queen of Spades on WoW LJ asks the million dollar question about Upper Deck's loot cards: so how many do I have to buy to really get one?

Good question. nantena points us to this thread over on Upper Deck's site that has the odds set from the Heroes of Azeroth loot cards at 1:96 packs for the tabard, 1:288 packs for the Hippogryph pet, and 1:566 packs for the turtle. That means you have to buy 566 packs, which is about 24 boxes (there were 24 packs per box in Heroes of Azeroth) at about $60 each, just to mathematically come close the odds you need. That's already $1,440, and even then, considering all the cards are randomly placed, you're not guaranteed a card.

Now, the latest set is a little easier-- March of the Legion has more cards per pack, and the odds on the loot cards are better. We don't know what they are, but you'd probably get at least one loot card (and probably more) if you shelled out $1,000 right away. However, if all you want is the loot card itself (you could get a nice tournament set out of $1,000, no doubt), you're better off checking prices on eBay. $500 for a Spectral Tiger seems like a lot (and trust me, it is-- if you're spending $500 on a virtual item, you have too much money), but it's nothing compared to what you'd have to spend trying to grab the card randomly.

In case you really wanted it, the Burning Crusade Collector's Edition apparently isn't all that collected-- it's still in stock at Amazon for $74.99, a few bucks off the original price. The original Collector's Edition is a little harder to find-- it's been out of stock for a while, and copies are going for around $200. eBay is the same story-- you can buy the BC:CE for as little as $50, while the original CE is going for much, much more.

My guess is that it's the old laws of supply and demand-- by the time Burning Crusade dropped, everyone knew it would be a hit, so Blizzard made a bunch, while the original CE probably had a lot fewer copies made. But the noncombat pets might be a draw as well-- the original CE had Diablo, Zerg, and Panda pets, while the Burning Crusade only had a pretty unimpressive Netherwhelp pet.

And the other interesting question is what will happen when the next expansion drops. Being that WotLK is much more integral to the Warcraft that everyone knows and loves (while BC was much more involved with the ancient history of Warcraft), will people who've skipped Burning Crusade so far be more inclined to pick it up when Wrath releases? Maybe the BC:CE will get rarer as we get closer to Northrend.

[ via WoW Ladies ]

Mowing lawns is so passé, delivering newspapers is totally last year. These days kids have found a new way to make money: selling WoW characters on eBay.

But how, might you ask, can they get around the fact that this is clearly against the TOS? Evidently they are posting disclaimers on their auctions, letting bidders know that they aren't selling the characters (which are the intellectual property of Blizzard,) but are instead selling the time it took to level that character.

In a CNBC segment on the topic, one kid mentioned that he gets around $400 for a level 70 character. He puts his profits right back into the business as any bright entrepreneur would, reinvesting in characters he will then level up again to sell to – you guessed it – Chinese gold farmers. Now, as much as I like the idea of news we have been writing on for weeks getting mainstream coverage, I have to wonder if this disclaimer business isn't just a loophole to get past Blizzard. What do you think? Is it breaking the TOS to sell the characters even with a disclaimer, or is this just a novel workaround enabling kids to make a profit off their play time?

[via Jane Wells]

In news that's been making the rounds today, eBay announced that they will be actively delisting auctions of in-game property for various MMOs. This would include, of course, WoW accounts, gold, and items. The Slashdot article that is the source of this story quotes eBay as having the following rationale:

• Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one. The policy on digitally delivered goods states: "The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner." Given the nebulous nature of ownership in online games, eBay has decided the prudent decision is to remove the possibility for players to sell what might be the IP of other parties via their service.

We've seen some of the problems surrounding unauthorised WoW guides, but just how good are they? I've run into adverts for WoW ebooks and guides on eBay several times now, but I always dismissed them quickly.

Until recently, that is. I've put my money where my mouth is and coughed up for two eBay ebooks -- both with similar advertisements, promising WoW tips, tricks and secrets. I won't advertise the exact products here, but if you're tempted by similar offerings, read on for the lowdown.

In their never-ending war against the evil gold farmers of the planet, Blizzard has announced that during the month of May, over 30,000 accounts have been suspended, removing over 30 million in gold from the economy across all servers. Now, just look at those numbers for a moment: 30 thousand accounts closed. That's a number of subscribers that many small game companies would love to claim as their entire playerbase, and those are not only just the cheaters in WoW, but only the ones who got caught! And 30 million gold out of the economy...that's...well, I'm actually not sure what the hell that means, because I'm not an economist. i'm sure Ben Stien could tell you.

In any case, the bottom line is, don't cheat, or Blizzard will get you. If they're lucky. You can read the full announcement at the official homepage right here.

All you have to do is visit eBay to see that your virtual acquisitions in Azeroth have real money value.  But if my epic-geared character has a real value (a priest in my guild was recently offered $1000 for his character), does that make it a taxable asset?  The IRS has no definitive answer for this, though as the market for buying and selling virtual goods becomes larger, there's the chance that this could change.  While such real life consequences for a game might seem far-fetched, they're already starting to occur - players in South Korea have been prosecuted for stealing virtual property and Chinese courts have ordered game companies to restore stolen (virtual) goods.  Can the IRS be far behind?

I confess, I'm an eBay junkie. I love to browse around and buy and sell useless knickknacks, so when I started to get bored with my lvl 60 warrior, I sold him. This was relatively early in the game, so I was astonished at the price that I got for him. it was almost double what I had expected, and it got me thinking, "Someone has payed a (relatively) obscene amount of money for my character, and they have no idea how to use him."

Playing a character up to 60 is a daunting task, and, once accomplished, should give you a good idea of how to handle your character. Every class has nuances that can only be appreciated if the player has spent hundreds of hours with that class. A beginner starting at 60 would be a waste, because he or she would be deluged in items, special abilities, and talents. Not having acquired these a few at a time, learning how to use them gradually, they would be lost. I imagine the people opening up their freshly-purchased account and scratching their heads in confusion.

The level of competence required from endgame PVP and instance raids is very high, and those who don't measure up are quickly blackballed, so I feel a certain remorse in taking these people's money and throwing them to the wolves.

The other option is that an experienced player purchased the account, which I can't even begin to understand. The majority of fun which I receive from WoW is in gaining levels, or a "levelgasm" as I call it. Once I hit 60, the fun plateaus.

Anyway, have any of you ever purchased an account online, and if so why, and did it work out for you?