Thoughts on the Diablo 3 1.0.7 PTR

200k to craft one of these. Hoping for good stats.

I decided to test the Diablo 3 PTR within an hour after it was announced. The use of more gems to create those elite Marquise Gems caused gems of all types to skyrocket (This is the first time I've seen every gem cost over 2000 now, I wish I bought a lot of them earlier.), and I wanted to see if those new items were worth it.

Thoughts on the PTR:

• It seems like elite mobs spawn more frequently and creatures drop more. Where it was hard to get five to spawn during a Arreat Core Lvl 1 / Tower run, at least five elites appeared to build up the NV quickly and that only appeared before I finished the map. I'm guessing because they want testers a chance at grabbing those DE's to test out the new plans.
• During a single run during the PTR, only two Demonic Essences appeared per run. 20% seems fair enough for MP0, given that you only encounter less than twenty per run. Plans might drop too often when farming minibosses and would be much cheaper to buy from the AH instead than from the vendor (1.5 million gold).
• The undocumented feature of identifying items when selling to vendors: Previously all items had to be identified before selling - now when you're on the sell item screen instead of being unable to sell you will identify it instead. I like that change.
• Plans drop too frequently now (5x as much - I found 7 plans within the first two hours of play, two exalted, the rest plans released in the update) - expect those prices for each legendary plan to go down a bit. The plans to create account bound items are sellable, though trades are the only way to do that at the time of writing.
• Marquise Gems are underpowered for 80 million... or more. In short, they're not worth your extra gold and you should buy an equipment upgrade instead. The Ruby does +150 to damage - even though it might sound large, it's still less than what a crit damage might do on a Lvl 60 hero, when they're focusing on getting the most dps as possible (which means going for high crit chance and damage)
  • The only reason why the Ruby would be the only thing worth buying is that it greatly increases the damage potential of pets or alts - making any hero under Lvl 50 overpowered (When you first find a weapon sockets at lvl 15 or so, you'd be lucky to get 50 dps on it).
• The new crafting recipes? Item level 63, 1 main stat guaranteed at up to 15% more than possible (by that, in the range of 200-215) and 5 random stats. For each of the main armor parts. 100k to craft, and more for the ingredients (total 200k or so to craft one). Also, they're account bound, so you can't sell on the AH. Have fun. (This, I believe, is the closest they have gotten to gambling in D2)

Minigame: Ball with Post it Notes

More like an icebreaker, and I don't know the official name of this one. As the first UOP CKI meeting, there were quite a few people, and all (but three) people of 20 I already know by name.

Due to undertaking multiple major projects this semester (one for each class I'm taking) and other programming projects (including the UOP Game Development group's proposal), I may be too busy to even show up at local CKI events at all.Therefore, I am canceling the idea of the picture album "24: The Service Project at Davis". Summary:

• The picture album takes place a year after the events of 24: The Interclub at Davis, this time during the 26-hour 'Service Never Sleeps' marathon at Davis. Album starts at 1pm in Oakland, CA on 1/19 and ends at 1pm 1/20 at Davis, with one image taken around every ten minutes. This will be compiled into a Facebook album, and timestamps will be in realtime (the time the image was taken) as well as commentary. Tags of non-friends are included.

Minigame Instructions: When you catch the ball, answer the question posted that was under your left (or right) thumb. Toss the ball to another person that hasn't gotten it yet.

Super Chicken Man (Yes, that is the name of the resturant)

Rosemary Chicken with Fries order.

Stopped by this place on opening day, one of my relatives told me about this place.

Yes, there's just chicken, a bit spicy but good stuff. Menu here. Note, they don't serve these dishes to you in nice plates as seen in one image of the ad (When I got my order, it's in a apparently disposable plastic basket), and there's only three/four tables in the restaurant, though you could always do take out.

Their restaurant menu is significantly smaller than their catering menu, I'm guessing they're working with other restaurants to do this though.

2013 Coming In

The first few days of the new year for me occur in Reno for a change.

2012 has brought in some of the best and the worst this year. For some people, they mentioned that 2012 wasn't that good (there were a few incidents) and wanted this year to be better. (And I thought that 2012 would be good).

Notable Events: (in my perspective)

• Spring 2012 in Stuff (Jan 2012)
• 24: Interclub at Davis (Jan 2012)
• Reached 400 friends on FB, completing a longtime goal (and 100 subscribers) (Feb 2012)
• Hosted a Key2College Workshop (Feb 2012)
• Reached Bronze MRP Status at CKI. However "someone stole my star!" and missing a gold...ribbon) (Mar 2012)
• End of district event appearances at CKI (Apr 2012)
• Finished with Undergrad at UOP. (May 2012)
• Introduced to Perler Beads - Made the Capital Division Logo out of it. (May 2012)
• 24 Hour Fitness (Jun 2012)
• Hiking at Lake Tahoe (around 10 miles) (Jun 2012)
• Kindercalc Project (Jul 2012)
• Long Beach and Universal Studios (Aug 2012)
• Fall 2012 in Concepts (Aug 2012)
• Supreme Commander Speedruns (Aug 2012)
• Zuma Blitz undergoes a new revision, Kroakatoa Island. Fans were not pleased with the coin system. (Sept 2012)
• Borderlands 2 (Sept 2012)
• Riding the BART (Oct 2012)
• TOS (this blog) reaches 250k views. (Oct 2012)
• Popcap Swag Package for work on Zuma Blitz (Nov 2012)
• First official 5K run at Davis (Nov 2012)
• Facebook application development (Nov 2012)
• Popcornopolis (Nov 2012)
• Game Development Group (Dec 2012)
• Diablo 3 and the ability to make money with it (Dec 2012)
• TV Series: Quantum Leap, and Kitchen Nightmares (none which I could remember the date)

Planned Resolutions / Revisions in 2013:

• Designed Subcategory: EllegnArt Deviations (Angelle is no longer reachable, and I have recovered most of her artwork that was previously made unavailable. I've got a new direction planned for them)
• Programming Subcategory: FB App Making (Because sometimes the examples just aren't enough...)
• Chibi Art will now occupy the 'Designed' category, and all artwork / sketches are currently delayed (this is due to reduced priority, anyone that was included in a partially completed sketch were notified).
• SD Chip (my 16GB SD chip was breaking apart) will be replaced and upgraded, the money won from Reno (less than 100) will be used to fund products for tech reviews.

Two Weeks into the AH: Flipping Amulets (and other goods)

A large warehouse of gems and other components ready to craft and sell.

Another week goes by in the AH and I've at least doubled my asset values (at around 75M). It makes any gold farming in D3 seem rather trivial at the rate which gold is gained from flipping items. (I had to split up my time between D3, programming, and other FB apps, as well as checking the newsfeed manually, since the undocumented RSS feed that gave me daily digests of friends' status messages over the last two years was taken offline.)

In addition to gem selling, I've resorted to flipping amulets this week because of several traits that make it unique. First, the caps for attributes go much higher than usual, and second, they can also be fitted onto followers and have no class restrictions. The first reason makes them valuable as key attributes approach their max values on ilvl63. There are occasions where some valuable amulets are auctioned off for under 100k, and sold for much more.

Note on image above: It doesn't look like I have made a lot compared to last week, but keep in mind: I do have 220+ more Perfect Square gems ready to craft or sell (in case a high point rises in the market) and filled all my slots with valuable gems and TOS, which values to at least 15M+ here. There's also five Star and Flawless Star gems being put on auction in the RMAH as well as a 160+ STR and VIT Depth Diggers.

What to go for in the GAH (Amulets): Anything with two of the following attributes:

• Gold Find > 30%
• Crit Chance > 7%
• Crit Damage > 66%
• Attack Speed > 6%
• Any Main Attribute > 303
• Magic Find > 40%
• Resist All > 60

Note on Flipping (in detail): Best to research the lowest cost of an item with those attributes before starting to make your bids/buyouts. You may want to keep track of how much you paid, and how much you listed the item as, so you can decrease its if it fails to sell, as long as you break even.

If you want to flip Legendaries, keep in mind some items are slightly more profitable to sell on the RMAH. Stormshields with good stats (at least 200 STR and 100 VIT) tended to sell well at 1-2 bucks profit a piece - and they were bought at 1mil or less. Block percent was irrelevant. You could try this for gems for a nice profit (as high as 70% ROI at the time of writing), but they sell a lot slower, and you need more of them before you can put them on the market.

McDonalds Grilled Onion Cheddar

Drawn in from the sale being a 'Grilled Onion Cheese Sandwich' for a dollar, I decided to get one today instead of the usual McChicken. I wasn't impressed with the sandwich - it was a bit small, but tasted good.

Not a grilled cheese sandwich, it's "grilled onion" with white cheddar (a new thing) as well as a beef patty. Guess I missed the time when they had the Cheddar Bacon Onion Sandwich with chicken, which would've been more than decent.

Christmas Snow Village at Lincoln Center

Introduced to the Snow Village at the Lincoln Center - one of the more nicer finds in Stockton. It's quite the display and took a while to look at, better than driving around and looking around for Christmas light displays. There's also a scavenger hunt checklist while you're looking around.

Where and When? Look around the Lincoln Center in Stockton - the display occupies an entire store front display and the lights are on between 5:30pm and 10pm., up until January 6, so you still got some time. Full brochure here.