World of Warcraft – Page 5

November 19, 2010January 12, 2014

The Second Life Cataclysm

World of Warcraft is largely expected to experience The Shattering next week, a time when Deathwing wreaks havoc and brings chaos to Azeroth by changing the landscape, another step in the direction of their Cataclysm expansion pack. There have already been a number of pre Cataclysm events in World of Warcraft, including this week’s chaos when Elementals tried to invade the major cities.

Linden Lab are also unleashing events to mark their Cataclysm, when the teens are welcomed with open arms to the grid, this has a scheduled release date of the end of this year, but that may change, although it’s highly unlikely to happen on December 7th. We’ve already experienced a number of pre events too, the search game when you had to figure out why your parcel didn’t show in search when multiple maturity ratings were selected was one event quest, another was when those humourous Lindens decided that a parcel that had PG content but sat on mature/moderate land should be filtered out of PG search, because hey it’s mature land you silly people and even though the content may be completely PG, we don’t want the teens knowing it exists. Continue reading “The Second Life Cataclysm”

November 12, 2010January 12, 2014

Worlds Can Collide Sometimes

Battle.Net the Blizzard partner site that caused a kerfuffle over the way they wanted to engage with Facebook and display real names on the forums has evolved into quite a useful tool. I can now talk to friends who are playing on different realms or even in different games in the Blizzard family and now that they’ve removed the threat of Facebook, real names on the forum and displaying your friends of friends when they shouldn’t be being displayed, it’s now something worthwhile.

However, at some point this sort of tool will be more beneficial if it extends across other worlds, such as Second Life, and allows you to talk to non Blizzard game users. There’s also something else they’ve introduced that’s handy, an authenticator. Basically, with this little USB device, you can only login to your account or the game, whilst it’s plugged in, and whereas such a device is far from perfect, it’s an improvement in security. Continue reading “Worlds Can Collide Sometimes”

July 7, 2010January 12, 2014

Micah Whipple – A Name To Remember In The Privacy Stakes

Micah Whipple, remember the name because it’s an important one in the privacy stakes. Blizzard it seems, have bought lock, stock and extremely smoking barrel into the whole concept of sharing the love of real life details, many of their users however are not at all impressed about the Zuckerberging of their names, the problem it seems stems from forum changes that will mean anyone posting on the forums at some point in the future (the exact date is vague) will post using Real ID, which will mean posting with their real first and last name, they can helpfully post with their character name alongside it.

The problems for Blizzard started when they posted this information on their forums, the US forums here and the European forums, here. Some forum goers feel this is a wonderful move and will cut down on trolling, which is one of the reasons Blizzard cite: “The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players — however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well. ” Continue reading “Micah Whipple – A Name To Remember In The Privacy Stakes”