World of Warcraft – Page 8

World of Warcraft Exploring Microtransactions

Astute World of Warcraft players noticed that the 5.4 patch brought with it an interesting new addition to the public test realm. A few players on the forum noted the sudden appearance of an XP buff item, which appears to be sold through the same cash shop as the mounts and pets currently available. The item, an Enduring Elixer of Wisdom, grants 100% exp bonus with no mention of how long it lasts.

Community Manager Zarhym chimed in later in the thread, confirming the item and explaining that Blizzard is exploring microtransactions.

We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game. As part of this process, elements related to this will be appearing on the PTR. We’ll provide additional updates on our plans as development progresses.

Whether or not Blizzard decides to go ahead with fully implementing a cash shop will have to be seen.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

WoW Insider Alleges Mobile Armory Hack

WoW Insider is reporting that Blizzard’s Mobile Armory app has been hacked, with reports from players that their accounts were breached and used to make overpriced purchases as a method of laundering gold from the account. The reports included accounts with authenticators attached, and the breach appears to have involved both North American and European customers.

The report states that Blizzard GMs have apparently confirmed the breach, advising that players make use of WoW’s SMS authentication. Blizzard has taken down the mobile auction house for maintenance with no direct reference to the alleged breach.

(Source: WoW Insider)

Thank You For Not Competing

Perfect World Entertainment made news this week when they said that their plan with Neverwinter is not to compete with World of Warcraft. In an interview with Red Bull UK, Craig Zinkievich said that the goal was to “operate a fun game people like to play and want to come back to.” The developer believes that the box price and subscription model are no longer valid in most places, with the vast majority (86%) of gamers subscribing to only one MMO at a time, and fewer willing to subscribe to two. You can read the entire article here, where they talk about the free to play model and a couple other topics.

I almost feel bad for assuming that World of Warcraft’s consistently falling subscriber numbers would mark the end of developers trying to compete with it, but I suppose that years from now when World of Warcraft is a shadow of its former glory that the new benchmark for success will be the twelve million subscribers that the game peaked at. That said, I can’t help but give points to any developer willing to state that they are not looking to beat/compete with World of Warcraft. Why? Because at least I don’t have to worry about Neverwinter shutting down because it couldn’t meet the developer’s unrealistic expectations. Or Perfect World Entertainment labeling the game a failure, firing all of its developers, and stripping its funding to fix launch issues, subtle reference to Warhammer Online and several coughs.

The only thing that such a business model tells me as a video game writer is how willing the company is to cripple its own product during development and then shoot it in the head when it doesn’t pop out of the womb as an already accomplished millionaire. What better way to instill confidence in the press and your potential community than picking a goal that not a single other developer has managed to achieve, and measuring anything less as abject, irreconcilable failure? One can only sit and wonder why consumers don’t flock to spend sixty bucks and fifteen dollars a month on what is almost guaranteed to be a mediocre attempt at recreating a game they got sick of three years ago, launched with all of the grind and bugs of said product and no understanding of why it became so popular to begin with.

As a writer, I encourage developers to try and compete with World of Warcraft because the ensuing train wreck attracts leaves a lot of onlookers and that means more views for websites like MMO Fallout. As a gamer, however, I keep my money out of anything that so much as mentions competing with World of Warcraft, unless of course it is preceded by ‘we are not.’ So while Neverwinter may not be the perfect game, I have to give extra kudos to Perfect World for seeing World of Warcraft as a product to live with, not having the same reaction my dog has when he sees the vacuum cleaner running.

Also why is Red Bull better at getting MMO interviews than I am?

(Source: Red Bull UK)

World of Warcraft Down To 8.3 Million

Sound the alarms, prepare for the apocalypse, and call up your mother to tell her you never liked her cooking anyway, because World of Warcraft has announced a drop in subscriptions and that can only mean one thing: An apocalyptic flooding of the internet by the usual group of self-involved, cynicism spewing gamers that always pop out whenever news like this hits. Activision Blizzard has revealed that World of Warcraft lost 1.3 million subscribers last quarter, hitting 8.3 million at the end of March.

“While we have had a solid start to the year, we now believe that the risks and uncertainties in the back half of 2013 are more challenging than our earlier view, especially in the holiday quarter. The shift in release dates of competing products, the disappointing launch of the Wii U™, uncertainties regarding next-generation hardware, and subscriber declines in our World of Warcraft business all raise concerns, as do continued challenges in the global economy. For these reasons, we remain cautious. However, our focused and disciplined approach to our business has served us well in the past, and through continued investment and
careful management of our costs, we expect to continue delivering shareholder value over the long term as we have for the last 20 years.”
-Bobby Kotick

Blizzard released Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, which ranked as the #1 PC game for the quarter. Black Ops II ranked #2 in overall dollars.

(Source: Activision Blizzard)

World of Warcraft Has “More Than 9.6 Million Subscribers”

You all know what February means, and I’m not talking about TERA going free to play. It’s quarterly report month! Activision has released their fourth quarter reports for 2012, and things are looking…toward the future. Net revenues for 2012 were up $500 million to $4.99 billion, with CEO Bobby Kotick describing the year as “the best performance in [Activision’s] history.” Skylanders, Activision’s toy-based game, has officially made its way into the billionaire’s club, selling over 100 million toys to the tune of $1 billion worldwide. Diablo III became the #1 best selling PC game with more than 12 million sales, while Mists of Pandaria took its place at #3.

World of Warcraft still retains its throne as #1 subscription MMO, dropping from the 10 million reported in Q3 2012, while still not dipping as low as the 9.1 million the quarter before.

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers

Back in 2011, Blizzard announced a commitment to release more content at a faster pace, in order to combat the issue of players chewing through an expansion’s content and then unsubscribing out of lack of things to do.

(Source: Quarterly report)

World of Warcraft Has "More Than 9.6 Million Subscribers"

World of Warcraft still retains its throne as #1 subscription MMO, dropping from the 10 million reported in Q3 2012, while still not dipping as low as the 9.1 million the quarter before.

As of December 31, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with more than 9.6 million subscribers

(Source: Quarterly report)

MMOrning Shots:

Fun fact: That is not my hand. Blizzard is still adamant that World of Warcraft may one day come to handheld iOS.

MMOrning Shots is a (mostly) daily article displaying random screenshots hidden in the MMO Fallout archives. If you would like your own screenshot featured in this article, send it to us via email at (mmofallout at gmail dot com)

Class Action Lawsuit Against Blizzard Over Account Security

Blizzard is on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit over the company’s account security. The lawsuit, filed against the Santa-Monica developer, states that Blizzard deceptively and unfairly charged customers for extra security devices (authenticators), pulling in $26 million while failing to provide adequate security for people who were not willing to pay an “undisclosed fee.” The lawsuit cites countless accounts that have been breached due to Blizzard’s inadequate security, and seeks to bar Blizzard from “tacking on undisclosed fees,” and from requiring users to sign up for Battle.net.

“Most recently, on or about May 19, 2012, reports proliferated that class members’ Battle.net accounts had suffered a security breach (‘hack’) at the hands of unknown parties (‘hackers’), and on or about August 4, 2012, hackers massively breached Battle.net’s security and acquired the private information of all of defendants’ customers in the United States, as well as the remainder of North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.”

Judging by how other class actions end up, players who purchased the authenticator can likely look forward to a $.50 credit coming to their Battle.net account somewhere between 2015-2016.

(Source: Courthouse News)

Blizzard Offers Charity To Hurricane Sandy Relief

Blizzard is my favorite company when it comes to charity. In 2009, Blizzard released the Pandaran Monk pet, raising $1.1 million for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2010, the Moonkin hatchling raised over $800 grand for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2011, the Cenarion Hatchling raised nearly $2 million in support of disaster relief following the tsunami in Japan. With the recent Hurricane Sandy that tore up the eastern coast of the United States, Blizzard has announced that a special Cinder Kitten pet will be released on the Blizzard Store.

The pet will cost $10 and 100% of proceeds will go toward the Red Cross relief effort.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

World of Warcraft Exploit Leads To City Massacre

In some MMOs, the idea of players being able to engage in PvP combat outside of designated areas can be horrifying. Someone gaining the ability to engage in combat where they shouldn’t could go on a rampage and make use of the full loot systems in games like RuneScape, and make the lives of many players miserable before they are eventually banned. In MMOs like World of Warcraft, the threat is slightly less present. Death is little more than a time setback, the penalty paid in a moderate fee to repair armor.

And speaking of World of Warcraft, everyone is dying. In the streets, in the houses, but mostly in the main cities. For several hours yesterday, on multiple servers, a kill exploit ran rampant through the major cities of Azeroth, with low level characters mowing down players and NPCs without a second thought. The exploit was hotfixed by Blizzard, and the perpetrators have presumably been banned. Eurogamer tracked down the source of the exploit, and found quite an interesting justification for the action:

“We had to. The first account ban for using the kill hack was issued around 30 minutes before we started nuking cities. We did so because we knew it was going to be fixed,”

Now might be a good time to explain that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you are obligated to.

(Source: Eurogamer)

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