Your Community Might be Bad, But they Aren't FIFA Bad

On the 28th of July the former Birmingham City and Liga MX America striker Christian Benitez was admitted to hospital with severe stomach pains. Hours later, his heart failed and he passed away.

Shortly after this sad news broke, players on FIFA13 started doing this:

Benitez's FIFA Ultimate Team card went from < 1k to 100k or more in a matter of moments. Players bought every single instance of the card on the market, multiplied his price tenfold or more and then attempted to resell him. Essentially, they were hoping to make a profit from Christian Benitez's death.

I would like to say it is an unprecedented level of tactlessness, but unfortunately that wouldn't be true. After Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch during an FA cup tie between Tottenham Hotspurs and Bolton in March 2012 the exact same thing happened.

Players essentially "price locked" Muamba's card such that if you wanted him you'd have to pay ten times the price of the day before, and the disturbing thing is that people actually paid that amount for him. People were willing to pay through the arse for a player card simply because that player was in the news for having a near fatal heart attack on national television.

It is a truly disquieting trend in the FIFA community. Every community has their trolls, their heartless internet low-lives who are willing to make a quick buck at someone elses expense, but this is different really - this is sick.

Yesterday was the Day before my Birthday

I only went and survived another year!

[GW2] Dessa's Fractal Stabiliser - Concept

Fractals are great and all, but there will always be at least one which people groan upon encountering (naming no names - *cough* dredge *cough*). What if you could skip that fractal, and be assigned a new one? Wouldn't that be awesome!? It would even provide ANet with data about which Fractal people most often skip - suggesting which one needs work. That's why I came up with Dessa's Fractal Stabiliser:

The cumulative research data gathered by our continuing adventures through the Fractals of the Mists have provided Dessa with femtobytes of information on this dangerous and volatile phenomenon. Whilst she hasn't been able to pin down exactly how to stabilise and neutralise the entire fracture, through some epic number crunching and, frankly, her monumental genius, and using the many millions of powerful fractal relics we've collected over the past few months, she has been able to develop a contraption which unifies the disperate fragments of the moment and artificially stabilises the event.
This Fractal Stabiliser allows a group of adventurers to skip past a fractal if they so choose it, purchasing a Fractal Stabiliser costs 250 Fractal Relics (Dessa needs to extract the chaotic power from the Relics to attune the Stabiliser).

Because of the artificial nature of the stabilisation, once the group has moved on, the event collapses in upon itself (as opposed to resolving and becoming stable as it would do if the group fought their way through as normal). Consequently, skipping a Fractal like this only bumps the group into another random Fractal (excluding the one they just skipped).

Activating a Fractal Stabiliser brings up a pop up box for the party (much like the dungeon path selection dialogue). The group must then vote on whether to skip the Fractal or to stay in the current one.

If the majority votes to skip, the Fractal Stabiliser is used up, Dessa informs them that she has been able to stabilise the fractal and that she hopes the next leap... will be the leap home. The party is then teleported to a random fractal. Once they reach their destination, each party member will be affected by an 60 minute account-wide debuff - "Stabilisation Sickness". This sickness will have no other effect than preventing anyone affected from activating another Fractal Stabiliser.

If the majority vote to stay in the same fractal, then the Fractal Stabiliser is not used up, but it enters a local 60 minute timer before the player can activate it again.

[GW2] ArenaNet to Remove Magic Find?

Over the past few months we've been handed a number of alternative ways to gain a ridiculously high Magic Find%. Hero Banners, NPCs giving +200%, new and abundant consumables and now a permanent stat increase coming with the achievement points. If combined with full Magic Find armour, accessories and weapons (with the Luck Sigil) it is possible to get a ridiculously high Magic Find %.

But even without full MF gear, and ignoring the stuff which has now been removed, given a fairly standard level of achievement points and combined with a well, banner, guild boost and consumables it is conceivable to have 150%+ Magic Find without sacrificing any stats from your armour/weapons.

I think most would agree, that should be enough for anyone. Given this influx of new ways to increase MF (and particularly thinking of the permanent stat increases coming with cheev points) I think this points to ArenaNet, some time in the near future, moving to remove Magic Find as a stat on gear entirely. 

How they might go about this (would they simply change all the MF armour to another type? Or replace the MF stat with something useful like boon duration? Or even create an entirely new stat?) I'm not sure, but I think it's on the horizon and, given the ridiculous levels you can reach atm, I think it would be entirely justified.

EDIT: Called it - https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/