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?

The economy in WoW has some interesting nuances. Players spend oodles of WoW gold on their crafting professions, and sometimes manage to turn a tidy profit. I'm often surprised to see some items that are strongly in-demand, like Light Feathers. Shrewd players use the auction house to build their bankrolls. Lomentari of EU-Draenor is exasperated with people who fail to use the auction house "properly."

She is angry that other crafters are selling the same product she creates for several gold lower than her preferred price. The items are placed on the auction house en masse at the low low rate, which the original poster blames on Leather Workers skilling up. She feels powerless to do anything about her "massive money loss." The original poster is willing to accept small cuts in pricing, but has a hard time deal with steep declines in prices.

There's a new game in town, and Artirius of the Aerie Peak server has noticed it, and admittedly, so have I. With attunements gone, it is now possible for any level 70 to go in and see tier 5 and 6 content whenever they want. Of course, they don't generally have a prayer of actually downing bosses unless they have 20-24 well geared people to help them out.

That's where gold comes in. With a few thousand gold, you can buy your way into a tier 6 group that doesn't need the tier 6 armor and go along for the ride. A few hours later, you come out on the other end with Illidan dead and a few shiny new drops, even if you've never set foot in Karazhan.

It's not just people trying to buy these slots in the trade channel either. As Artirius observes, many raid groups are actively soliciting for buyers for their raid slots. On my own server, one Horde group is trading tier 6 runs for large quantities of certain herbs, promising that all but a few select drops will go to the people who buy their slots with stacks of Netherbloom and Ghost Mushrooms.

So what's causing this?

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Once your guild purchases all the bank vaults you need, your bank will start accumulating gold without a clear purpose for how to spend it. As the donations and requests from members roll in, it's up to us as officers to decide. The author of this week's e-mail is concerned about the way his fellow officers are using the gold.

I recently became a low-ranking officer in a guild after demonstrating utility in knowledge, generosity, and helpfulness to my guildmates. When this occurred I decided to take a proactive approach to the guild and began lobbying for a new guild tab to open up to the lower ranking members. Everyone seemed supportive of this until I started digging into the financials. It seems as if the current state of the guild is members deposit, and the main officers withdraw it fairly quickly. For example in the last week or so 11 members (including myself) deposited a total of about 37 Gold while 4 officers withdrew over 50 Gold.

A guild called Invictus on Alextrasza has posted a sort of advertisement on their realm forum, offering to sell raiding gear to anyone willing to cough up enough gold. There are all sorts of responses, from "Hey, those prices are cheap!" to "This is cheating!" One poster said that players should go through these instances on their own, through teamwork and patience -- but a member of Invictus replied, quite eloquently, that players all over their realm are more than welcome to work their way through The Burning Crusade content on their own, Invictus isn't stopping that; rather they are just providing a service for people who might genuinely be in need.

Suppose, for instance, that your guild is in the middle of progressing through difficult content and a key player, such as a main tank, has to stop playing WoW due to real life difficulties. The next best tank you have in your guild is nowhere near as well-geared, and finding another outside person to fill such a crucial role could be difficult in the extreme. Invictus, they say, allows your whole guild to chip in and get your next best tank to pick up a couple pieces of gear from the highest raid instances in the game, thereby allowing him or her to catch up and start helping out much faster. It seems like a legitimate service to me.

Then again, this is clearly a different situation from some rogue who just wants some epic weapons so he can do tons of damage in PvP -- especially if he didn't earn this gold he's spending through legitimate means within the game itself. Is Invictus doing the right thing by opening the doors to all kinds of players? Should they be very careful in who they sell too? What's your opinion on the matter?

[Thanks, James!]

The other day I listed the items that will be used in new recipes after the patch. I did miss a few things, but with your helpful comments, I've updated the original article to be more complete. I'll mention again that it's difficult to make predictions on what will sell the best, but nonetheless I've decided to list some of my thoughts on the subject below.

Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Forget the endless debate over "hardcore" versus "casual" – there's another moniker that we here at Insider Trader hold dear: "salesman." What's that? You don't know any salesmen in WoW these days? You're not alone. Times have changed since craftspeople toiled to build reputations as the go-to traders on their servers ... when Ironforge was the hub of civilization, where a few elite enchanters held court over the entire server with coveted formulae from such exotic locales as Stratholme and Scholomance.

It's a brave new world in today's Outland. Most enchanters don't enchant for the general public at all, unless you provide mats and a tip. And in any profession, with so many other players on the servers who have the same patterns (even rare patterns are generally available from more than one player) and so many easy ways to make money (hello, daily quests!), there's little reason to hang around town to build a regular clientele. Components provided or created by other professions are readily available on the Auction House – there's no need to seek out and nurture relationships with another player from a complementary profession.

Have the conveniences Blizzard has developed for today's crafters meant the death of the salesman?

I've already said a few times that I'd love to see Blizzard's population figures, but a query (from an MVP, strangely enough) brings up another set of figures that I wouldn't mind a look at: NPC vendor sales numbers. Crepe wants to know how many items Griftah has sold (and how many hula dolls he sells post 2.3), but unfortunately, Nethaera deflects the question and leaves us with nothing. Additionally, I'd like to know how many heroic badges G'eras is going through on any given night-- maybe the fact that he's not selling many of his Heroic items is the reason why Blizzard is going to start dropping Badges in both Karazhan and Zul'Aman next week.

Blizzard has given us peeks at a few numbers behind the game, but they haven't updated that page since it went up (and with all the exceptions on those lists, it's not much help anyway). There is a whole new world of statistics to be had in Outland, and it'd be nice for Blizzard to let us at just a few of the most interesting ones.

Death and Taxes has made WoW headlines for many things, mostly due to their raiding achievements. But today on the forums another aspect of the guild's performance made heads turn: their PvP arena teams. In the PvP arena 3v3 bracket Death and Taxes guild members have been using the current rule system to their benefit. What exactly does this entail? Well, to be specific, members of the top ranked teams are sharing their skill with lower ranked PvP players in order to raise their standings and get them the coveted Armored Netherdrake and an easy title. Seeing the success of one D&T arena team after another is frustrating their opponents, and therefore the vocal forum protest.

Members of D&T have naturally spoken up in their own defense, and fairly eloquently I might add. One of the accusations leveled at the guild was that they are using top crafted items to gain an edge in PvP, essentially using their power as a PvE guild to dominate the PvP domain.

I love the Auction house. I've got a mule parked there just specifically so I can log over periodically, scan, and then snap up any bargains and either stash them for tradeskills, send them to an alt, or resell them if it's an item that has been severely under priced. (I can't tell you how many copies of the Savory Deviate Delight recipe I've bought from the AH for 40s that I resold for at least 5g.) But I have to admit, I've never thought that the search interface was too terribly good. Then I saw a blue reply to a forum request for changes to the auction house that made me a happy panda. According to Eyonix:

...We're also working to improve our user-interface, which includes the auction house. Below are some of the changes slated to be implemented for the next patch.

• The Auction House now has a reset button that will reset all fields you have entered to allow you to quickly try a different search.
• When items are being put up for sale on the Auction House, if the item you are putting up for bid is the same item and quantity as the previous item you put up for bid, it will automatically fill in the price and buyout for you with your previous price.
• Gems are now searchable in the Auction House under the heading of Gem with the gems then broken up by color so you can search for all gems of a specific color.

I just wonder if the end version of automatic fill they implement will remember prices from when you were logged in before like Auctioneer does? Or will the auction house "forget" things as soon as I log out -- or perhaps even as soon as I close the auction house interface? It's not enough of a change to replace Auctioneer for me, but it's a step in the right direction at least.

And I lest I forget -- Hooray searchable gems by color in case you missed it in the previous patch notes!

[via the General forum]