Editorials – Page 127

World of Warcraft's Connected Realms Does Mergers Right

World of Warcraft has had low population servers for years, all the way back to the first expansion. This is hardly unexpected, as the game boasts 241 realms in North America and 263 in Europe. Instead of dealing with the technological and logistical nightmare of merging servers, Blizzard introduced cross-server technology to allow players to interact across realms. With the release of update 5.4, World of Warcraft will see multiple realms stitched together permanently with players questing, grouping, raiding, and selling items on the auction house.

Our goal with Connected Realms is to give players on lower-population realms more opportunities to group up, compete, and connect with other players to take on Azeroth’s bigger challenges. That sort of interaction is a big part of what makes World of Warcraft fun, and this feature will help us deliver that experience to even more players.

The list of connected realms hasn’t been decided yet. Read more about the plans at the link below.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

Planetside 2: Cross Platform And Character Transfers

PC and PlayStation 4 will not be taking each other head on in Planetside 2, however if you own both platforms you may be able to transfer your character between them. In an interview with Eurogamer, Matt Higby explained that due to the extra steps required in getting a patch approved and launched in the PlayStation Network, it is impossible to keep the two versions of Planetside 2 in sync.

“They might be a week behind in terms of patching, or a day behind or whatever it ends up being, and we can’t really have that.”

While cross-platform play seems impossible at least for the time being, Higby notes that the technology for transferring characters between platforms is entirely possible.

“But we’re also talking about having character portability, so a PC character, you could transfer it to PlayStation 4, and then back. The character format’s the same on both, it’s just purely a matter of the server updates.”

Check out the entire article below, where Higby goes on to talk about optimization, the PS4, and further updates to the game.

(Source: Eurogamer)

MMOrning Shots: My Nose Itches!

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Sony Online Entertainment with Everquest Next. With the voxel engine making everything destructible, naturally that Kerran should be able to chop those flowers down, throw them in a nice ceramic vase, and then throw the vase over the side of that cliff and watch it smash against the ground. Right? I consider myself to be a rather sensible gamer, but if Everquest Next doesn’t contain the flower pot cliff smashing, you can count me out as a buyer.

Oh, it’s free to play? That’s preposterous, I still won’t pay it.

Meet Glorious Mission Online, China’s Ode To The PLA

Glorious Mission Online may sound like a really cheesy parody video game or something that might authentically come out of North Korea, but the game does in fact exist and can actually be downloaded at this very minute. The game was developed by Giant Interactive Group, whom you may not recognize if you live outside of China (ie: 100% of the viewers on this website), in collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army for use in training simulations. Glorious Mission Online takes place in a war between China and Japan over the hotly contested islands in the East China Sea, with players taking up arms as PLA soldiers to tell the Japanese “you will not violate our sovereignty!” I’d like to take credit for that statement but that is what is written on the game’s website.

Otherwise the game is essentially your Call of Duty or Battlefield title, backed by the PLA not unlike how America’s Army was backed by America’s Army. You can download the two gigabyte game at the link below, but expect a lot of national pride.

(Source: Glorious Mission Online)

Meet Glorious Mission Online, China's Ode To The PLA

(Source: Glorious Mission Online)

Activision Blizzard Sued By Shareholders Over Buyout

I couldn’t resist using that picture, I am sorry. As you may recall, not too long ago Bobby Kotick’s investment group announced that they would be buying most of Activision Blizzard’s stock back from Vivendi to the tune of eight billion dollars. One shareholder, Todd Miller, has filed a lawsuit against the company and parties associated with the deal. Miller is claiming insider trading, noting that the stocks were sold at a 10% discount, saving more than half a billion in sales.

Miller is suing to have the deal overturned in court, and wants Activision to have controls put into place to ensure that further backroom deals do not take place. You can read all about it at Courthouse News at the link below.

(Source: Courthouse News)

ESRB Changing Rating Labels

Polygon.com is reporting that the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is in the process of making some small changes to how ratings will appear on games. The changes are nothing drastic, with a simple change in color scheme from white on black to black on white (pictured above). You can also see that the “content rated by” message has been removed and that the rating letters have been made larger.

The goal is to make the logo more visible in digital environments, particularly on the smaller screens of tablets and mobile phones. The ESRB doesn’t expect the transition on game boxes or store advertising to be a fast one, and are simply asking publishers to use the new symbols from this point onward.

(Source: Polygon)

MMOments: Realizing OldScape's Place

The launch of RuneScape 3 has thrown RuneScape’s lore across the room and back again. Much like when Cataclysm launched with World of Warcraft, many of the existing quests had to be either rewritten or removed entirely because they dealt with a land or scenario that no longer existed. RuneScape 3 ushered in a literal new age, where the gods are free to return to the world, and several quest series no longer make sense in the current context of the game. Take Rune Mysteries, for instance: The original quest has a landmark role in the world lore as the player rediscovers the runecrafting altars and opens up a renewable source of runes for the entire world. When Jagex rewrote the quest, the events of the original Rune Mysteries became historical, accomplished by previous players and now part of the past.

So then I got to thinking about the convenient timing of the Old School RuneScape servers. Since the events of Old School RuneScape are mostly considered historical in RuneScape 3, perhaps this is a way to preserve that part of RuneScape’s history and allow players to participate and see the events for themselves, players who either joined after the release of RuneScape 3 or never managed to complete those quests. It is an interesting theory, even if it is probably wrong.

MMOments: Realizing OldScape’s Place

DC Universe Can't Wait To Ditch The PS3

The PlayStation 4 is coming out soon and no one could be happier than the DC Universe Online team at Sony Online Entertainment. Don’t get them wrong, the current generation of Sony’s console hardware is nice enough, but with what is effectively a 220mb system the team is dealing with rather tight constraints. The unfortunate situation is that most of the players on DC Universe are playing via the console, so they are stuck with the limitations for the time being. In an interview with Shacknews, Executive Producer Larry Liberty explained that they can see the PS3 version being retired once a large portion moves over to the new hardware.

“I do expect that eventually, PS4 to come out, and probably be more successful than PS3 was as a platform. It wouldn’t surprise me if we do get a pretty quick migration, but we’ll keep servicing PS3 for a while.”

It will happen at some point, the question is simply when.

(Source: Shacknews)

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