Too many unbelievable things have happened the last 3 weeks — mostly bad stuff — that I don’t even know where to begin. But I’d like to take  a break from the negativity and focus on a few positive things before I resume my not-so-kinder-and-gentler demeanor.

First thing on the list: I am going to do  a good deed by buying Rachel a new WoW account, expansions and all, and along with the rest of our guild, I am going to help her level those toons till they’re fit to raid with us. It’s the least I can do after she lost her account to some evil hacker who deserves to be stuffed into a blender and fed to wild boars.

Now along with the promise to level those new toons as fast as possible, I am going to provide each character frostweave bags and seven additional bank slots.

Yeah I know, it’s a big-ass promise that’s going to cost me a fortune in WoW gold but good thing prior to St. Patrick’s Day almost every gold seller known to man jumped on the promotional discount band wagon. The best value for this cheapskate appears to be the one offered by WoW Gold Pig, who — get this — is offering 25% bonus gold on top of your order.



25% bonus gold. Rachel, your new toons are off to a good start. Hell, I’ll even get you starter mats when your toons acquire professions.

And in other good news: people on all my realms are learning to report Trade chat scammers and announcing to all and sundry the sort of whispers they received to warn other players. Like take the dumbass who whispered earlier  that Blizzard is "to launch Free Unicorn Zebra, Get Now log in: http: // battle-armory dot net"  (do not go to that site!!! - EGF) .  Bastard got roasted on Trade chat — the kindest comment being "Why do those retarded scammers keep using the ‘Unicorn Zebra" scam? Only a definite idiot would fall for the name alone." Keep slaughtering them, kiddies!!!

And of course, buy WoW gold only from the most reputable sites. KEEP YOUR WOW ACCOUNTS SAFE!!!

I am reposting parts of my MySpace blog which I published several hours earlier. Before I write a full tirade post, I need to get more details and help jog Rachel’s memory as to what she could have done that got her into that nightmare. I’m also too angry now to think and write straight.

HACKED. THEN BANNED. WTF.

Kids, I am still alive. Just been really ill then busy with a million things.

I have bad news:

My friend and guildie Rachel, the latest member of my WoW Gold Facts team, lost her account to a hacker. And while she managed to get her account back, she lost a lot of her beloved toons, including her super duper mega elite shammy who served as our raid healer.

The thief (or thieves) got all her frost emblems, vendored her epics, sold a lot of her frozen orbs at the AH, then deleted many of her toons….basically did everything to drive her insane.

And I feel really guilty.

Why?

Because her working for my site entails exposing her account to all sorts of potential risks. Risks I was willing to take because I have four WoW accounts and even if one of them got hacked or banned, I still have the three accounts where I keep my uber leet toons.

What happened was Rachel noticed that her password had been changed. She did a password retrieval, but it was too late. She got an email notification from Blizz saying how she was exploiting the economy.

That was bullshit. The last several test orders we made for WGF were all sent to my accounts.

However, Rachel did admit to chatting with a few gold spammers in the game, trying to extract certain info from them, and even checking out their sites plus this one site where one can ostensibly get a freebie in connection with the new patch.

Only one word comes to mind: keyloggers.

I’m going to write that much promised post about Rachel’s experience. In the meantime, why don’t you read this very interesting article in WoW.com about this hypothetical scenario where Blizz sells gold to keep the Chinese gold sellers at bay . Food for thought, kids. Food for thought.

Cough, cough, wheeze.

Guys I am still alive. Just sick. Very sick. Even Rachel, the latest member of the WoW Gold Facts team, is sick no thanks to me. Cletus has been infected and his voice over the phone was so hoarse and phlegm-riddled I thought he was going to die on me. Remus is somewhere in South America with his parents. I hate him. How dare he go on vacation and flirt with pretty Latina women while we’re all suffering from a plague.

I will be back. I have been so busy AND sick at the same time, I’m starting to suspect someone up there hates me.

Stanley (you know who you are), thanks for your email, man.  Yeah I checked out the site and saw my medal plastered on their landing page. Someone needs to die ASAP!

But first I need to get healthy again.

Right, so there I was in ICC farming for rep, killing trash and crap and doing so well then realized it was the dumbest of times to do ICC because….

It’s realm maintenance time AGAIN! And  big-a$$ one at that.

I hate having having my momentum ruined.

Oh well, life with Blizz….

Later, peeps.

Screw the kinder, gentler WoW Gold Facts that Rachel is planning on. Move, girl, this post needs, er, posting!

Bruce Everiss, a self-described veteran games industry marketer and author/owner of the site Bruce On Games , came up with what I would describe as a tour de force of a writeup on the Evony people - the same gang behind Wowmine and all things dubious. I call it such because WHERE AND HOW THE HELL did he dig up the mugshots photos of the Evony staff…particularly that of Eric Lam, my favorite whipping boy???

Here are passages from his post called The People behind Evony :

(By the way, Bruce, hope you don’t mind my using some of your images for this post. If it isn’t okay, well, send me an email, buddy.)

So that’s what good ol’ Eric looks like! Looking at him I’d never think he’d be capable of doing anything fraudulent . (I also recall Hayden of Mogs.com telling me sometime last year that the Lams "did a huge round of click fraud in September 2007 that took all sites off Google for a very long time" and ended up costing Mogs.com over $13,000!) I mean, come on, he looks like a smart, harmless post grad student who barricades himself in the library reading astrophysics and shit!

Anyway, I am still floored as to how Bruce dug up all that stuff on the Evony gang. I’ll probably never know but this is what I can tell you: Bruce has my support. We need more people like him to expose the scammers plaguing the gaming industry. Oh as for him getting sued by Evony for telling the truth ? Sic your own lawyers on them, buddy!

Keep us posted, Bruce. We’re cheering you on!

Kiddies, the WoW Gold Facts Price Comparison page is up!

Now you can check and compare different gold sellers’ prices without having to tab from one site to another. The info you need is all in one convenient page.

Here’s what it looks:

All you have to do is select your game (WoW US or EU), then your realm, faction and finally the amount of gold you’re looking to buy. You’ll then get a list of gold sellers showing their prices for that particular block of gold.

Piece of cake, right?

Cletus, thank you for all the hard work you did on this page. Now I’ll just have to worry if I can afford to pay you.

Okay, so I said there will be a new review and Rachel just told me to "stay the eff out" and let her finish all the drafts. She said she wants a kinder, gentler WoW Gold Facts.

A kinder, gentler WoW Gold Facts? WTF?

Can you actually picture that? I CAN’T!

She took a look at the first installment I was about to publish, then smacked my hand and told me not to or else she would murder me.

"Let’s just give it a shot. Who knows it might work and you’ll deal with less death threats." Rachel said enthusiastically.

"No, I’ll still be dealing with the same death threats. You’re the one everybody is going to like!" I said.

"Tough," she chuckled.

WoW Gold Facts with a woman’s touch. Stay tuned.

I got a sweet Valentine’s message from "Blizzard". Apparently my "accounts options was recently modified through the Account Management website", which I haven’t touched in a while.

(Click for a larger image)



Hello,

This is an automated notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Your account options was recently modified through the Account Management website.

If you made this change to your subscription type, please disregard this automatic notification.

*** If you did NOT make any changes to your account or subscription, we recommend you login to Account Management at the following link to review your account settings:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/billing/

If you cannot sign into Account Management using the link above, or if unauthorized changes continue to happen, please contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for advanced assistance.

Billing & Account Services can be reached at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499 Mon-Fri, 8Am-8PM Pacific Time) or at billing@blizzard.com.

Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives will typically lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

The World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowindex/

Nice try, losers. Seriously, you must be so desperate to keep trying this old hat trick on people when by now everyone’s aware of this lame stunt. Pre-Cataclysm thievery at its finest! BE WARNED ONCE AGAIN!!!

Where’s mah gold? you might ask.

Oh it’s somewhere out there, kid. It just hasn’t been farmed yet. See, every Chinese supplier is happily on break and celebrating their New Year. They’ve got customer support available though to throw this stupid macros at every anxious customer:

"hi, looks like during the Chinese New Year (Feb 11st to Feb 16), the gold supplying will not be sending instantly probable and it is hard to send the gold now, however, we are trying to search the gold suppliers who keeping working on line, so that means if we have the gold news, whisper you in game directly, thanks for your great understanding"

I swear I didn’t make that one up! Rachel and I followed up on a test order she did the other week and all we got was that sorry excuse of a response. Wondering which site that macros is from? Ha! You’ll know by tomorrow.

Hell, welcome to my world, Rachel! There will be more chatting with bots in the future while you are in my team.

May God have mercy on you.

So wrong, so wrong, so wrong!

First, tacky.



And they used Alliance, but which is okay because Allies deserve to appear in tacky newsletters.

But still so wrong.

"Buying a new suit for your lovers in the game will be an unique nice idea!" — if they sold Victoria’s Secret in WoW, then hell yeah, it would "an unique nice idea!" (Unless the sexy Belf you’ve been flirting with and bought lingerie for turns out to be a f*cking dude IRL)

Oh and hey, In Game Fair dudes, you FOGOT the "r"!

Second thing below: needy. Too much lithium involved in writing this literary masterpiece. And WTF did she mean by "onlybaby"?

(Click for a larger image)



Cletus thought she sounded horny and lonely so I gave him the Chinese chick’s hotmail address so he can contact her and give her a very, very, VERY happy Valentine’s Day. Let’s just hope she understands dirty English words. Otherwise that would be a major mood killer.

And last but definitely NOT the least….



SO SICK! THIS IS SO SICK! THIS IS SICKER THAN REMUS’ ORC PRANCING AROUND DALARAN WEARING THE SAME EXACT DRESS THAT GNOME CHICK IS WEARING! I MEAN COME ON, TAUREN EAT GNOMES FOR BREAKFAST, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!! THEY DO NOT MATE OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO MATE WITH THOSE LAWN ORNAMENT WANNABES!!! TAUREN DON’T COURT GNOMES, THEY EFFING PWN THEM!!!

Ugh, that image is gonna stay in my head for at least a few more days. I think I need therapy for seeing that one….plus the disastrous 10-man in Ulduar I did with Alvin, Remus and the seven dwarves geniuses.

Later y’all.