I should have known that the boys at Blizzard wouldn’t let things go for too long without adding something else. Now they’ve announced that registration for the 2010 Arena Tournament is open for registration, so you’ll want to sign up soon so you can take part. They haven’t announced the official date of the tournament as of yet, but I’d expect it’s coming up soon.

The reason this is such a big deal is the prizes that are available. Sure, there’s the chance to show your l33t skills in crushing everyone out there in 3v3 battles and all. But, really, with $15,000 up for grabs in the regional tourney and $75,000 for the global, there’s money to be made here. Those prizes would cover your WoW subscription for a rather long time. Or, if you wanted to buy gold, it’d make sure you have the funds to do so for…well… ever really. I can’t imagine being able to blow that much on it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the format, you get a level 80 character (not one of your own, a toon they give you at the time) and you can pimp it out as much as you want. This includes infinite gold and access to shops that sell everything you could possibly want. Epic level gear from WotLK, Honor trinkets, training, you name it, it’s up for sale. Then you and two others take on other teams to try and take the top spot. And did I mention the HUGE cash prizes? Yeah, I’m stoked about that.

Anyway, the good news about all of this is that it’s giving time for the gold market to settle down. With all of the new stuff lately, we’d seen a lot of price changes as supply dried up. Patches and additions mean more people are going to buy gold. This drives supply down, which can lead to increased prices. Unfortunately, this has only gotten worse in the last few weeks.

Prices are up everywhere. The best I’ve found so far is at Toonstorm. They’re only up to 10.11 per 1000 gold at the moment, which is keeping it a little below where the others are. They haven’t had to sacrifice delivery speed, however, so you can still get it at the express rate they usually offer.

i’m really hoping that Blizzard slows down for a little bit right now. That’ll allow prices to come down as the companies restock. You may want to get some now, though, in case it just goes up further.

Hey there folks!

A friend of mine was talking with me earlier this week and was starting to get really frustrated with how hard it was to get decent amounts of gold in wow lately. He’s a level 75 pally, but his gear is a little… weak to say the least.

Now granted, he’s an on-again, off-again player. Never been as hardcore about it as I am, but really enjoys it when he does play. But his infrequent runs and raids just don’t net him the drops he needs to make a real DPS monster like he wants to be. And the main thing that’s been holding him back is gold, or the lack thereof.

So, naturally, I suggested he buy some. He’s well-off, and I think he’ll play more and be happier about it if he just gets his gear up to snuff. He thought about it, and decided to go along with the idea. I tagged along for the ride so as to post a review here when we were done.

We started shopping around and stopped on a site that had some screaming deals. But before he bought, he took my advise and googled the site to see just what came up. What we found was pretty shocking. Dozens of posts about scams, all directed at this one site. I’d post the name, but as of yesterday, they no longer exist so there’s no point. That’s right, they dropped off the interwebs entirely. We felt really lucky.

So, instead, we decided to hit up Toonstorm to see what they had running. Prices are about the same as the last time I posted (about $8 for 1000 gold), but there was some awesome news on the front page. It turns out, Toonstorm is donating 5% of every purchase to a Haiti disaster relief fund. They’re trying to raise $7,000, which may not seem like much, but considering the size of the niche we’re talking about, that’s pretty impressive.

That sold him in the end (he always did love to give to a good cause). So, he placed the order and hopped into live chat to track it. The rep there told us that the gold would be ready in about 20 minutes, so we chilled for a bit. About 15 minutes later he logged in and got a tell to meet in SW. From there, the money was handed over and all was well. So, in the end, he was happy to buy wow gold, and felt good about doing so at Toonstorm.com.