Having said that, I believe it could easily be improved to be 10 times as funny, while not requiring any rebalancing and will not effect gameplay at all.

So what spell do I speak of? Mind Control. Thats right, a largely under appreciated spell is the best spell in the game, you heard it here first. I’ll often prevent an enemy from dying in a battleground, just to do something hilarious with his body. But in case you don’t believe me, here are a few of the things you can do to enjoy this amazing ability.

1. The standard gravity assist.  If you play Eye of the Storm, Arathi Basin, or Alterac Valley (near the alliance bridge is the best), lure your opponent near a cliff.  I usually psychic scream them first in hopes they will blow their pvp trinket, and then immediately start casting Mind Control.  If you get a hold of them, throw them over the edge and you’ve got a 1 spell kill.
2. Drown them.  I’ve only done this a few times, but I’ve loved every second of it.  It is rare to have a fight under water, so pulling this off is difficult.  The main thing to consider is to make sure you won’t drown yourself before your enemy, so it helps to be undead, or have a warlock’s water breathing buff.  If you can’t manage those things, then get a Hydrocane from Gnomer and you’ll be fine.  Lure your enemy as deep as you can while fighting him. It takes a normal player 60 seconds to drown, so try to fight him a while before mind controlling him.  You’ll know he’s almost gone when you hear that gurgling noise he makes as he starts to run out of breath =)
3. Hunter problem?  If you can sneak up on him before he sees you, mind control him, and have him kill his own pet! He’ll feel pretty stupid once you release control and he has a dead comrade at his feet.
4. Like above, except get his pet to kill him.  This one takes more luck than anything, but I have in the past successfully mind controlled a hunter with low health and managed to get his own pet to attack himself and kill him. That was a good day.
5. In heavy battles that are too chaotic to play close attention to individual players, you can often mind control one enemy amidst a crowd and get his own teammates to kill him. Typically this situation can attract a lot of attention to yourself which is dangerous, so make sure to do it within a very busy cluster of your allies.

All of these situations will get a definite ”LOL” from any of your teammates that witness you pull them off, which is part of the payoff.  When ever I play on my hunter, no one every gets excited about you having a big crit or an awesome killing blow- it’s hard to impress your fellow adventurer.  But Mind Control never fails to please a crowd.

So this is all well and good, but this blog is about implementing new features.  And why of all things would I suggest we improve the best spell in the game?  Because it would be so simple for blizzard to do, and as you will see, no balance issues will arise from this.  I’ve always been disapointed that I can’t make my victims emote when I’m controlling them. I’d love to make them /dance as the DoTs I put on them slowly tick away at their health, but instead it just makes the spell break.  So what I propose are either specific emotes to be used on mind controlled targets or, more simply, new idle animations.

My number one goal when I Mind Control people is to create the most humorous situation possible, preferably in a manner that embarrasses the victim.  Here are some animations I think they should add:

1. Mind controlled targets will suddenly be compelled to hit themselves in the face repeatedly
2. They could do that little dance that toddlers do when they have to pee
3. This is hard to explain, you might have to act it out to get the picture.  Stand up, and stick your butt out as far as you can while simotaneously pushing your chest forward.  Then insert one finger into your nostril whilst rotating your wrist and say “duhhhhhhhhhhhhh”.  I’d like my victims to look like a fool while doing this.

I’d also like it if their pants could spontaneously drop to their ankles, revealing boxers with red hearts on them before they scurry to pull their pants up again, but sadly the character models and textures aren’t constructed in a way that this could be done easily.  But any ways, I think with some new mind control animations the entire game of WoW could become vastly more hilarious with minimal effort on blizzard’s part.

If you’re looking for a particular item, you may be able to find it at the AH, you might not. For example, I searched every single day for two weeks looking to buy a Knothide Quiver and eventually gave up out of frustration. I visited the auction house multiple times a day and advertised in trade chat every time I entered a city, and never saw the faintest sight of it. It was this dilema that made me first realize the difference between buyers and sellers in the WoW economy.

If you are a seller, the Auction House makes it incredibly easy to go about your business. Drag, drop, click- the sale of your item is now automated for the next 48 hours. If you are a buyer who is looking for something unique, you can easily get caught in an endless loop of checking the auction house, advertising in trade chat, whispering other players, etc. Why is it that selling is so effortless and buying can be nearly impossible in certain cases? Shouldn’t buying be just as easy as selling?

It appears to me that the Auction House is only half complete. There needs to be a “Wanted Ads” system, which could either be handled by the very same auctioneer NPC or perhaps a billboard mounted on the wall of the AH. This would allow buyers to browse through a catalog of items, choose one they wish to purchase, and place a deposit.  Sellers would then be able to look through a listing of ads, and supply any item that they find that offers enough gold for their services.

I suggested this idea some time ago on Blizzard’s suggestion forums, and immediately received 2 pages worth of positive responses. There were only 3 complaints, and I feel they weren’t actual problems with the system so much as a misunderstanding of how it would work.

If this system was implemented, it would be abused the same way the trade chat is and no one would be able to use it for its intended purpose.

To answer this complaint is simple: there will be no text field for a player to insert personal comments.  Instead, the listings will appear in the same fashion as the AH sales; Item, Quantity, Duration, Price.

It would be easy for a person to place an ad for an item, and then back out of the deal once the seller has gone through the trouble of finding/crafting the item.

This is another problem the system would prevent from happening. When a player says they want to buy an item for 10g and posts an ad, they physically deposit that 10g into the wanted ad system where it is held until your ad expires.  If your ad is fulfilled the seller gets the money, if the ad expires it is mailed back to you minus your deposit. It really works exactly like the AH but with gold instead of items.

People could use this system to exploit even more by buying low and selling high and depriving most players of a fair market.

My answer to this is 2 fold, and also leads to another benifit of this system. For starters, buying low and selling high is not against the rules or wrong.  As quoted directly from blizzard,

Some players do nothing but sit at the auction house and buy and sell items. It can be a lot of fun because buying and selling items is a fun alternative to fighting.

It is the responsibility of the player posting an auction to determine the price he/she will accept for the goods they sell. Moral issues aside, implementing a Wanted Ad system would actually reduce the amount of items being sold for low prices and immediately posted for higher prices. It also gives players who aren’t as familiar with the value of items an edge at getting a fair price for their goods.  Here’s how.

Consider 2 players, The Buyer and The Seller.  The seller has a Living Ruby he wants to sell, so he posts it in the AH for an asking price of 40g.  Later that day the buyer, who is interested in acquiring a living ruby, decides to post a wanted ad and request that some one provide her with one in exchange for 50g.  The wanted ad system will automatically detect that she is placing an ad that fulfills an ongoing auction and will then purchase it for her. She offered 10g more than the seller was asking for, but I’m of the opinion that the system should give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she could have easily checked the auction house and found this sale on her own, thus only charging her the 40g that was asked for and not the 50g she offered.  However, if she had posted her ad first, and then the seller came along later and posted his auction the system would then favor the  seller, assuming he also could have checked the wanted ads beforehand, thus giving him the 50g.  It is the responsibility of the first person initiating the sale to determine a price that satisfies them him or herself.

This system would greatly improve both player’s abilities to acquire the items they need, and also to have an efficient and fun way to earn gold.

Part 2 of this topic will cover other features that could be implemented once a Wanted Ad system is in the game.

What this blog won’t be about is pessimism or complaints about features that WoW lacks. I believe WoW is a great game and is full of hundreds of great innovations as it is, and for me to whine about what’s missing would be to overlook the insane amount of careful dedication the developers have already contributed to this game.

My entries won’t be frequent. I believe in quality over quantity. Having not yet written up a real entry I won’t speculate any further on what you will find here, I just hope you enjoy what you see. Thanks =).