World of Warcraft – Page 2

November 12, 2014

The Iron Horde Are Coming But I won’t Be Battling Them

Warlords Of Draenor. Blizzard’s fifth expansion in the World Of Warcraft series launches tomorrow and in typical Blizzard style, they have launched a mightily impressive PR campaign with Videos, storylines, social media hype and a very angry looking ride in a New York Cab!

Blizzard really are an impressive company when it comes to publicity, their cinematic trailers are superb and one wonders if they’ve ever considered extending those trailers into a longer series on their own, although I’d imagine they are damn expensive to make.

Warlords Of Draenor takes a step back in time to create a new timeline and the rise of the Iron Horde to bring new chaos to Azeroth.

There are obviously going to be new quests, new places to explore, new dungeons, an increased level cap and more. Despite all this and despite the buzz I’m seeing around certain circles, I won’t be participating.

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September 24, 2014

Blizzard’s Decision To Cancel Titan Should Sound A Warning Bell For Linden Lab

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has a blog post about Blizzard’s decision to cancel Titan. Titan was a planned new MMO from Blizzard, a long rumoured new MMO, indeed seven years long and it never seemed to see the light of day but it was supposed to be the next big thing.

Hamlet’s article has a link to a Polygon post on the same issue : Blizzard cancels its next-gen MMO Titan after seven years. That article has some great quotes from Blizzard’s co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime and Blizzard’s senior vice president of story and franchise development, Chris Metzen. Linden Lab should pay careful attention here to what is being said and what has happened. Mike Morhaime is quoted as saying :

We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs, So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn’t come together.

Linden Lab have created Second Life and I’m pretty sure that they feel really confident on how to make virtual worlds. They have now set out to make the most ambitious virtual world that one could possibly imagine, but will it actually come together?

Chris Metzen is quoted as saying :

We were losing perspective and getting lost in the weeds a little. We had to allow ourselves to take that step back and reassess why the hell we were doing that thing in the first place.

Linden Lab need to ensure that they don’t find themselves in this position with their future virtual world, that they don’t find themselves making something that isn’t fun, that isn’t really progressing how they would like it to and that might not be worth their time at the end of the day.

Then there’s the World Of Warcraft factor. World Of Warcraft may be in decline but it’s still quite healthy. The same can be said of Second Life. Chris Metzen confirmed that Blizzard will continue to support World Of Warcraft, indeed he goes further and says :

My hope personally is that we’ll support it forever

Linden Lab have said that they will continue to support Second Life, I’m sure there are people at the lab who hope they will support Second Life forever.

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September 15, 2014September 15, 2014

World Of Warcraft’s 10th Birthday Will Have Events, An Expansion And A Slap In The Face For Pound Sterling

World Of Warcraft will hit the impressive milestone of being ten years old on Friday November 21st. Blizzard, who are keen to incorporate party themes into their world will be launching events running all the way through to January 2015. The launch of the latest expansion pack, Warlords Of Draenor will be just prior to the birthday, on November 13th.

In a post on the blog Blizzard explain some of the planned events :

The 10- year anniversary celebration will begin in-game on Friday, November 21 and will last until Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at 10 a.m. PST. Everyone who logs in during this time period will receive the incredibly cuddly, feisty, and fiery new Molten Corgi to love, pet, and call their own. You’ll also be able to participate in a pair of special events to commemorate the occasion.

There will be dungeons, player versus player, achievements and probably a lot of fun. However for those of us in the UK, the birthday spirit has been somewhat tarnished by Blizzard Europe deciding to rise prices for new subscribers who pay in pound sterling. This will mostly be new or returning players based in the UK. Those who pay in other denominations will not get this slap in the face. On a post on their forum Blizzard explain the situation :

We regularly look at our pricing around the world and from time to time we make changes in light of local and regional market conditions. As such, we want to give everyone a heads-up that we will shortly be adjusting the pound sterling subscription price of World of Warcraft.

The new price for recurring subscriptions will be £9.99 for one month, £28.17 for three months (£9.39 per month), and £52.14 for six months (£8.69 per month). The suggested retail price of the 60-day prepaid time card will be £20.99.

As a thank you for current World of Warcraft subscribers, we guarantee that players with recurring (auto-renewing) subscriptions at the time of the price change will retain their current price for two years, as long as they remain in the same recurring subscription without interruption. This applies to anyone who is already in, or signs up for, a recurring subscription prior to the price change, which is scheduled to take place at the Warlords of Draenor release. We will reach out to relevant players approximately two months prior to the price change with a reminder.

Happy tenth birthday to you too Blizzard Europe!

Continue reading “World Of Warcraft’s 10th Birthday Will Have Events, An Expansion And A Slap In The Face For Pound Sterling”

August 14, 2014

Virtual Worlds Should Pay Heed To The Rise Of The Orcs

Earlier this year Mitch Wagner had an article published in Information Week about High Fidelity : Second Life Founder Pursues Second Chance. The article talked of how Second Life had not reached mainstream appeal and pondered whether High Fidelity can. Mitch wasn’t convinced because of the time investment, but he did acknowledge that Second Life got a lot right. However for the real reason Second Life hasn’t reached mass appeal we need to go to the comments on the article and consider the issue of Orcs :

Second Life would have fared better if it had appealed to MMORPG fans, the primary proven market for such activities. Philip Rosedale, you need orcs.

This comment misses the point of Second Life somewhat and yet in doing so, highlights one of the issues for Second Life and any other virtual world. People see Second Life as a singular place, it’s not, but the architecture of the platform can make it appear so, which brings us to another comment on Orcs :

I think the Orcs comment is spot on. It’s one thing to fix the technological elements, but Second Life never appealed to me because it was so open and amorphous. Part of the fun of an immersive experience is having an objective and a set of limitations to work within (or against). An open world where you can do anything sounds great, but then you run up against the limits of your own imagination.

This comment hits the nail firmly on the head. Second Life needs to deliver experiences as well as offering open creativity, people want something to do. This also goes back to the points Mitch made about time investment, people want to pop into a virtual world, experience something and logout. They don’t want to build, they want to be guided. The problem here isn’t Second Life itself, it’s the way people view Second Life as .. well, Second Life. I’ve said something along these lines before, but for Second Life to reach mainstream appeal it requires people to stop talking about Second Life. This may sound somewhat odd but my point is that Second Life should be viewed as the technology. The experiences the places people visit, the places people learn at, the places people role-play, they should be at the forefront of the major discussion, Second Life should be consigned to the geeky conversation about technology.

Now of course virtual worlds offer a sandbox experience and the concept is absolutely brilliant. Virtual worlds such as Second Life, Kitely, Inworldz, OpenSim etc. offer authors, creators, designers the opportunity to build their very own stage and bring their own visions to life. This really is a fantastic opportunity for people who want to get creative, to do so. However there are many many people who want to be guided through an experience, they want to teleport right in to the end product. Virtual worlds do indeed offer great potential but to some, a blank canvas is very difficult to grapple with.

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July 25, 2014

Buy Your SysAdmin A Beer, Even If It’s Virtual

The first rule of SysAdmin club is that nobody talks about SysAdmin club. The second rule of SysAdmin club is “How can I perform this boring bulk task with a script?” Today, the last Friday in July is the fourteenth Systems Administrator Appreciation Day. Generally people outside of SysAdmin groups aren’t aware this day exists, indeed plenty of people inside SysAdmin groups aren’t aware this day exists.

xkcd have a comic explaining the devotion to duty that goes into being a SysAdmin :

A comic should be here — Devotion To Duty

SysAdmins are the people who make it possible to login to your systems, be it at work, Second Life, Kitely, Inworldz, OpenSim, World Of Warcraft yadda yadda yadda. They help you recover that data you didn’t backup, they help you connect to the wireless network despite the instructions on how to do so being on the wall above their head.

They ask you “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” and really mean it as a helpful suggestion and have scorn poured upon them for doing so. No really, it’s a good tip, trust me I’m a Sys… umm blogger.

Plenty of SysAdmins you don’t see very often, they are mysterious, they may well spend most of their time in what is known as “The Server Room“, a place that is air conditioned to an absurd level to stop the servers from overheating, it’s cold in there and often dark, but these are the sort of conditions in which a SysAdmin can thrive. When you see them at an office function you ask someone else who they are, and the other person reveals their name, a name you’ve heard of, a name you’ve cursed, the name of the person who put a limit on your mailbox and refused to even consider raising said limit until you’d deleted those funny cat videos.

SysAdmins can in many cases be easy to spot, they are usually the people with their heads in their hands after yet another wonderful idea from senior management undid all the good work they carried out after the last wonderful idea from senior management.

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