Tag: World of Warcraft

Buy A Year of World of Warcraft: Get Diablo 3 Free


Don’t go rushing out right now and buying WoW subscriptions, folks, I have no idea when this deal starts. At Blizzcon, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has announced the WoW Pass, a twelve month subscription to World of Warcraft. With it, players will receive beta access to Mist of Pandaria, the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft that was leaked earlier this year. Even more enticing, pass subscribers will receive Diablo 3 for free.

You can read VG247’s coverage of Blizzcon here, and get a few more snippets of Diablo 3, WoW, and DOTA. Check out the trailer below, Mists of Pandaria looks gorgeous, even if the Panda race was originally designed to be a joke.

World Of Warcraft Legitimizes Gold Buying, Tradeable Cash Shop Pets


I thought I smelled something burning while on the drive back home today. Games like Eve Online fight gold farming by allowing people to purchase game time and sell it for in-game currency. This serves the purpose of keeping the big players playing (for free) while allowing people who need an influx of cash to do so without dealing with Chinese identity thieves. Games like Hellgate Global allow players to trade items they purchased from the cash shop in-game for currency, offering the same system but with a different virtual currency.

World of Warcraft recently released a new cash shop pet, but with a twist. This pet can be traded in-game for gold, and the function is deliberate:

 While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we’re OK with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services.

It’s up to the Warcraft community to decide how to take this move, but for all intent and purpose Blizzard has begun selling gold for real money. There isn’t much of a difference between selling something, and selling a coupon to get something for free at the same price as simply buying it outright.

Check out the rest of the page here.

Rift: We Are World of Warcraft’s Top Competition


Does Rift have one million subscribers? I have no idea, only Trion knows that information and the furthest they will move into specific information is the claim that Rift is number two in the market, and still growing. Either way, Trion is not a stranger to trash talking, and in an interview with Industry Gamers, Lars Butler wants Blizzard to know that Rift and its band of Hulkamaniacs are about to put the smack down at this year’s SummerSlam.

“I think nobody can ever predict that there’s another WoW because WoW basically had, for seven years, no competition. There was nobody launching that created an experience that was even remotely comparable – never as deep, never as polished. Now that has changed, obviously. Rift is out there as the most serious competitor they ever had, and now with Rift updating and evolving in the most dramatic way, that is changing everyday. Essentially, with every new update, the landscape is changing. But our goal is not necessarily to create one giant product that everybody has to play, but to give people choice.”

With Rift launching earlier this year, Trion is looking to expand its presence in the MMO market with the launch of End of Nations early next year, an MMORTS with a free to play model, and Defiance further along the line. Defiance is set as an MMO shooter, coinciding with the Syfy television series.

Still, mincing fighting words with the behemoth known as Blizzard has historically not gone well for the little guy, as Funcom and Mythic could easily tell you. We’ll have to wait and see if Trion has written a check their ass can’t cash.

Rift: We Are World of Warcraft's Top Competition


Does Rift have one million subscribers? I have no idea, only Trion knows that information and the furthest they will move into specific information is the claim that Rift is number two in the market, and still growing. Either way, Trion is not a stranger to trash talking, and in an interview with Industry Gamers, Lars Butler wants Blizzard to know that Rift and its band of Hulkamaniacs are about to put the smack down at this year’s SummerSlam.

“I think nobody can ever predict that there’s another WoW because WoW basically had, for seven years, no competition. There was nobody launching that created an experience that was even remotely comparable – never as deep, never as polished. Now that has changed, obviously. Rift is out there as the most serious competitor they ever had, and now with Rift updating and evolving in the most dramatic way, that is changing everyday. Essentially, with every new update, the landscape is changing. But our goal is not necessarily to create one giant product that everybody has to play, but to give people choice.”

With Rift launching earlier this year, Trion is looking to expand its presence in the MMO market with the launch of End of Nations early next year, an MMORTS with a free to play model, and Defiance further along the line. Defiance is set as an MMO shooter, coinciding with the Syfy television series.

Still, mincing fighting words with the behemoth known as Blizzard has historically not gone well for the little guy, as Funcom and Mythic could easily tell you. We’ll have to wait and see if Trion has written a check their ass can’t cash.

World of Warcraft Magazine Canned


Blizzard has announced that the World of Warcraft magazine has shut its doors, leaving subscribers wondering what what will happen to their remaining paid issues. To compensate players, Blizzard is offering one of two options:

  1. To get a refund, you’ll have to send a letter to the Future US mail box.
  2. Or players can opt for in-game premium pets, which are allocated depending on how many issues you had left on your account.

Head over to the magazine website for more information.

The exact reason for the cancellation has not been confirmed, but low subscribers and high production costs are probably high on the list.

World of Warcraft: Come Back For 7 Days


Seven days is all Samara needs to come out of the television and kill you. Oddly enough, that may also be how long it takes to get hooked back into World of Warcraft. If you quit World of Warcraft more than a month ago, odds are there is an email in your inbox inviting you to come back for seven days to give the game another go, assuming you hadn’t already with the fairly new up-to-level-20 extended trial.

If it’s been a long time since you last played, you will be relieved to hear that installing WoW is no longer an all day venture. Rather, thanks to Blizzard’s relatively new streaming service, you can get in the game in as little as a half hour, with the only downside being longer load times as the game downloads that zone’s information (30 seconds to a minute, I’ve found). You may also have to reset your password, as my initial attempts to log in were met with “your account has been locked” and requiring me to reset my password, and that is with authenticator ownership.

Still, World of Warcraft.

Where Are They Going? World of Warcraft Subs Slip to 11 Million


The question of “how do you kill World of Warcraft” continues to be asked by companies and players alike, yet it is a question that has already been answered. As Blizzard themselves have admitted, World of Warcraft cannot be killed by imitating it:

“Players that have invested time in WOW don’t just want to do the same thing in other game – they want to try something completely new and different,”
-Shane Dabiri, Blizzard, on WoW Clones

Rather, World of Warcraft can only be killed by Blizzard, and it appears that will be as simple as players completing the content and leaving. World of Warcraft’s subscribers peak when an expansion releases and gradually fall as players finish or become bored with the new content. Back in May, Blizzard announced in a conference call that they intend to release expansion packs on a more regular basis to combat this post-release drop in subscriptions, which I theorized could actually lead to players feeling over-charged and have a negative effect (read: Death by Expansions).

Over the past few months, Blizzard has introduced a series of updates to bring new players into the game, including updating the free trial to allow players access to content up to level 20 for absolutely free, with no time limit, and the recent release of World of Warcraft in Portuguese with a new client and servers for Brazil. That being said, this isn’t a doom-saying for World of Warcraft. In fact, despite this drop in subscribers, World of Warcraft’s profit margin continues to grow, $313 million as opposed to $299 million this time last year.

Not that anything I say will stem the “Blizzard will go bankrupt by the end of the year!” posters.

WoW: $1.9 Million To Japan Relief


Lods of emone! When Blizzard releases a new pet on the cash shop, you can bet that the GDP of a small island nation will find its way into the World of Warcraft coffers by the end of the month. Even better so, when 100% of the cost is for charity, at least you’ll have a good cause to attach to your new pet.

Blizzard announced that over $1.9 million has been donated to the Red Cross to assist in the Japan relief aid, in the form of a Cenarion Hatchling pet. This figure is a big notch in the increasing amount of charity donations over the past few years by developers and players, and as the MMO Fallout mantra has remained: If you’re going to compete, why not compete over who can donate more?

Week In Review: Butterfly In The Sky Edition


Given that today is Sunday July 5th and not a Tuesday, it must be time to put out the Week in Review completely on time, and that means another weekly topic to think about. Today I’d like to talk about NCsoft, namely the idea that they are this evil corporation that murders babies (metaphorically) and would sell their own mothers if it meant profit. Take a look at the below graph that I have compiled detailing the sales of all NCsoft games each quarter between Q1 ’05 and the latest release: Q1 ’11.

I know how a lot of you like to claim NCsoft shuts down successful games that they don’t like, but consider this: Look at how low Tabula Rasa started out, then see how low it got to before it was cancelled. The first quarter for Others was listed as Exteel, but the game was grouped in to show higher sales. Dungeon Runners is never even referenced by name, just lumped in with “others.” Auto Assault is also never mentioned, and is presumably lumped in with “others.” It’s pretty obvious looking at this chart that NCsoft sets a bar for when they shut down games, and that bar is far lower than many of us would like to admit.

1. The Star Wars Galaxies Challenge: Week 1.

My first log of the Star Wars Galaxies challenge, or my attempt to level as high as possible by the time Star Wars Galaxies shuts down in December. My character is a Twi’lek smuggler named Qa’ashi currently residing on Tatooine if you’d like to visit me, she is level 17 and was created on server I don’t know. The point of this line of articles is to give my experience playing Star Wars Galaxies during its last months of life, and I hope to make this my staple for shuttered MMOs (I can only hope two games don’t shut down at once) otherwise I may need an IV drip.

So far the adventure has gone with its highs and lows. If you haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies the age really shows on an engine that almost feels like it’s falling apart. I’ve had a few times where missions bug and a creature I’m tracking doesn’t spawn where it’s supposed to, or the waypoint doesn’t update and I have to abandon the mission. Small annoyances, like enemies spawning inside of structures and not allowing me to shoot them, or strange lag bugs where enemies regain health faster than I can shoot them. I love the missions though, and I love my free house (which I am populating with posters) and promotional vehicles.

There are a lot of factions in Star Wars Galaxies, to the point where shooting just about any humanoid is likely to lower your standing one faction and raise it in another. My biggest issue with alignment is the random checks in cities. I’ll be running along and I’ll just see “You have lost 20 standing with the Republic” or “you have lost 20 standing with the empire,” and a quick look in the chat box will show an empire/republic guard has been following me shouting “stop! You must submit to a random security check for illicit goods or you will be suspect!” I get that the game is old enough to not have voice acting, but how about some sort of noise indicator? I only suggest this for the same reason a police officer can’t arrest me because I was walking down the sidewalk and didn’t look over my shoulder to notice he was flagging me down by waving his arms wildly but not saying anything or tapping me on the shoulder.

2. Eve Online: No Non-Vanity Items. Ever.

So the Eve Online scandal comes to an uneventful close with CCP promising to the CSM that there will be no non-vanity items added to the NeX store, there were never any plans, and there will probably never be any plans. Maybe. Perhaps. Now, obviously CCP could change face at any time, and to speculate on a time and date would be a big waste of time given it would add unnecessary flames to a dying fire.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that CCP started the cash shop far too early, putting out the expensive items before they could get out the cheaper items. They also messed up by trying to fight the community rather than explain the system to them right off the bat, and by comparing Eve items to vanity clothing you’d buy from a Japanese boutique.

Perhaps, as one poster put it, this is just CCP’s success getting to their heads.

3. At Least MMOs Are Honest In Their Draconian DRM.

I was looking forward to Capcom’s Resident Evil: Mercenaries on the 3DS, and I was planning on buying it used (or new when/if the price drops), until I learned about the game’s DRM. You can only have one save file, and you cannot delete the save. According to Capcom, you would think this was a restriction out of their control, as they claim that the game saves to the cart and thus cannot be removed:

In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users.

If you want to get into specifics, MMOs have the most draconian DRM of any game on the market. You must maintain an internet connection, play on their servers, pay a subscription fee for many or don’t play at all, and if the servers shut down you are absolutely screwed unless someone somewhere maybe leaks the source and a private server is set up that often functions nowhere near the actual game. And God forbid you join a game that doesn’t get off the ground, your $50 and $15 a month for a year or so is gone, down the toilet.

But MMOs are a service, and it isn’t fair to compare an MMO’s DRM to a regular game’s DRM.

4. The Year of F2P And Revival

This has been an interesting year so far, with a decent number of titles being revived while others have gone free to play. We’re only slightly over halfway through the year, so there’s no telling what will happen by December, and then beyond. World of Warcraft debuts its unlimited demo, with players able to play up until level 20 for free forever.

Over at Global Agenda, Hi-Rez has announced that the free to play transition for Global Agenda has resulted in “ revenues are higher than they ever have been before” meaning more content at a faster pace. No doubt Age of Conan will report higher earnings this month, with Fallen Earth following next month, and City of Heroes at some point this year.

5. Speaking of Free to Play: Rock Paper Shotgun Free To Read

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/29/rock-paper-shotgun-goes-free-to-read/

Rock Paper Shotgun did a hilarious parody of the free to play announcement, with the reveal of RPS: F2R, a way for the Rock Paper Shotgun crew to take what was once free and monetize the hell out of it.

Of course there will be no need for readers to pay anything at all to read the new Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The first two paragraphs of every post will always be accessible to everyone, and readers can read them as often as they want, wherever they want, unlimited times*. The rest of the post will become available to those who make the RPS patented NanoPayments™, of anything from just $0.59® to only $299.99 per article. And Premium Users will continue to receive the same excellent service for exactly the same price as everyone else.
*Up to a maximum of four times.

You can read the entire article at the link above.

World of Warcraft: The Endless Trial


Haters gonna hate. Blizzard announced today that the previously 14-day trial will now be indefinite. Players can experience all that World of Warcraft vanilla has to offer, up until level 20, with no time limit. Players are also able to sample sections of Burning Crusade, and may create Draenai and Blood Elf players. Players looking to buy into the full game will find the World of Warcraft Battle Chest at a pretty good price at their local stores and on Blizzard’s website.

And who knows, perhaps this could lead to a free to play option at one point in the future. Not any time soon enough to hold your breath over, but sometime…in one dimension or another.

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