Whenever you say Blizzard, you say Battle.net. Whenever you say Battle.net, you say free services and servers provided by Blizzard for their online community. This big badass company has been facilitating the virtual life of its fans for as long as I can remember, feeding them with decent and stable servers for their non-MMOish titles, such as the Warcraft and Diablo franchises. Fun times, indeed.

... Up until now. According to Big Download, things are about to change very soon. While covering a Diablo III gameplay panel at this year's BlizzCon, game producer Jay Wilson said something in the lines of:

"We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features. We kind of have to."

Obviously, this will piss off fans like never before. I mean, many of them already frowned when Blizzard started to stare more at their profits and less at their fan base, with World of Warcraft squeezing large amounts of money each day, and with Starcraft 2 being cleverly sold as three separate games. But now, this?

The "good" news is that we have no details about what this "monetizing" actually means, or if it is aimed at the gamers themselves, or at some random advertising companies. Will we be forced to pay a monthly fee? A one-time fee? Or will we be staring at Coca-Cola commercials on every fucking Battlecruiser, while wiping the floor with the Protoss forces? Time will tell.

By the way. I find it peculiar that all these "clever" marketing strategies, specially designed to bring more income at all costs, have started right AFTER Activision got their paws on Blizzard. Hmmm...

PvP seems too easy so far in Warhammer Online - or, at least, Mythic thinks so. Certain world objectives, such as Fortress Lords and (contested) capital city guards, are getting a makeover in terms of imbaness, becoming a constantly increasing pain in the fine asses of all those brave enough to challenge them to a fight.

If we made them epic, at least let people feel epic when defeating them, says Mythic, and I agree. Such huge events, like storming (and conquering) well defended cities, should be much harder than it takes an airplane to crash without riposte into the walls of the Pentagon.

To help players out a bit, the company is also revamping two of Warhammer's high end armor sets as follows:

- We have updated the Annihilator and Conqueror armor sets (acquired through a variety of high level RvR) to include Wards, in order to maintain parity with PvE Armor Sets.
- The Annihilator set now includes the same Ward as that offered by the Bastion Stair's Bloodlord set.
- The Conqueror set now includes the same Ward as that offered by the City Dungeon Sentinel set.
- Players who equip pieces from the Annihilator and Conqueror armor sets will be better-equipped to challenge the Fortress Lords and contested city guards. The more pieces equipped, the better defended players will be against these deadly adversaries.

And since we're casually exchanging thoughts about World of Warcraft, let's stop for a bit and take a look at this here “casual” gamer. His Internets id seems to be Bradster and, unlike most multi-boxers out there, this guy boasts with rampaging Azeroth, Outland and (soon-to-be) Northrend with no less than 36 different accounts simultaneously. Yep, you've heard me right.



While he is a keen Horde player also interested in future solo raiding (I am expecting a “how to solo Sunwell" video when he dings 70 or 80), his main reason for this is the PvP factor. Mostly, world PvP. Beause we all know Arena is the suxx0r and that resto druids and dpslolrogues are overpowered.

This guy spends around 5711 USD per year to feed his hungry subscriptions, and intends to throw another 1500 USD down the sink when Wrath of the Lich King comes out, spending this otherwise promising pile of cash on 36 copies of the expansion. His ultimate goal? Invading Stormwind, leaving Onyxia's human form pregnant (oh, wait, she's gone), and then invading Ironforge and leaving the Gnomes pregnant. With a fucking overdose of Osama Bin Laden-like nuking power, I hope.



He uses a total number of 11 computers to do this, and his crazy idea basically involves a group of drunken, berseker-mode level 80 Orc Shamans, which are currently somewhere in the 60-70 bracket.

Well, what can I say. I wish him luck and thank God he is not on my server, since I play Alliance. A ganking extravaganza at the hands of a freaking 36 angry Elemental Shaman crew is not something I would like to witness.Over the jump you can bask in awe, reading this guy's own statement regarding this. (...)

 Continue reading 'How To Solo Sunwell With 36 WoW Accounts'...

Being a World of Warcraft player myself, every time I click on the Internets, following some random WoW news-related thing, I just hope it is not yet another “welfare” announcement. And, since this year's BlizzCon was overcrowded with more interesting news, mostly regarding Diablo III and Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft's presence was incredibly scarce.

Thank god for WorldofWar.net and the likes, dedicated sites and personnel who know what questions to ask (and, most importantly, WHEN to ask them. I remember a retarded Hungarian would-be editor who worked at a Romanian magazine, asking the Diablo III crew questions about WoW, at last year's GC).



One of the recent press conferences held at BlizzCon featured a question regarding paid in-game character customization, a feature that has long been promised. Sure, we have the barber shop and all, I can get rid of all my pub hair (and Dwarven chicks can actually shave those damned hairy breasts of theirs), but this was something different. Jay Allen cleverly avoided the question until the end, just like a drunk cat on a hot tin roof, but he had to give in after a while - Yes, folks, we WILL have this thing called paid character customization. While, just like it always happens when it comes to Blizzard, we have absolutely no details about this whatsoever, we can all try and... visualize. I think i'll be getting my hot Night Elven chick a penis, just for the lulz.

We all know them. We have all heard about them. The menace of social life, the top of the geekdom iceberg, the Laetitia Casta of gaming and the laughing stock for all those cheapscake Romanians who would rather cut down their penises and create illegal (singleplayer) servers all for themselves, than to buy and pay a monthly fee for an original game - they are called MMOs.

And, by God, we have tons of them. We have free MMOs, we have expensive MMOs, we have cute MMOs, we have violent MMOs, we have porn MMOs, hell, we even have that thing called Age of Conan, trying to prove for sometime now (and failing) that it is not a pile of crap. Yah, we have them all.

In the recent light of patch 1.02, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (which I have bought and played up until level 2, alt-tabbing to my Sunwell raid after that), seems to be doing pretty good so far, just weeks after release. Impressive. The ladies at Mythic have just announced that their little baby hit 750,000 registered users, all mad fighters for law, justice, Waaargh, and various other Warhammer related shit. Like candies.



This game holds surprisingly good so far, with solid core gameplay, good RvR arousement and (early) ejaculation, and while we await for the much promised (and not released at the start) content, we'll just have to take a look at Wrath of the Lich King and Mines of Moria, the new expansions for the other two MMOs out there. And for the awesomeness of Age of Singleplayerconan, lol.

1UP scoop.

An official press release just came out recently, stamping a North American and European release date for Mines of Moria, the (almost) awaited expansion pack for Lord of the Rings Online. Tolkien fans from all over the world will be able to bask in awe, as the game comes with new additions, items, things, a texture of two, all of which can be admired while players will try to retake Khazad-dûm from the minions of Saruman.



Even more, for the European preorders, the game comes with exclusive bonus items AND a lifetime membership for only 149.99 EUROS. I wish other MMOs would take on the same marketing strategy, but alas, other MMOs make enough money just the way things are right now. The expansion is set to launch on November 18.

If you are still shivering in pain and agony, wondering if your soon-to-be number one reason for computer addiction will work on your computer, fear not, because almighty Blizzard, in their infinite and candid lust to satisfy their customers, have revealed the system requirements for the upcoming World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Here we have it:

Processor:
Minimum: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2

Memory:
Minimum: 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users)
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)

Video:
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better

For the Mac specs, check the official post here.



Speaking of satisfied customers, I would just like to thank Blizzard for the incredible amount of fun it gave me in the English Beta. It was so awesome, testing that log-in screen for 90% of my time... I guess I actually had sex with that damn dragon by now.

All my bets are lost. I was dead-sure that WotLK would only be released in 2009, but fortunately, it seems that me and my fellow horde of skeptics (no pun intended) were wrong. If you visit the WoW website right now, odds are you'll be greeted with a page announcing the release date for the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion - "In Stores 11.13.08". That's like... really bloody soon! Better get your pre-orders sorted out, fast.


The same thing is also beeing announced by Blizzard in a full-fledged press release, which also sheds some light on when the expansion will land in different territories: November 13 in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia. November 14 in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. And finally November 18 in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

The Lich King's wrath will be sealed in a DVD box inscriptioned with a $39.99 price tag, and a special Collector's Edition priced at $69.99 will also be available "in select regions".

Today, developer Funcom and publisher Eidos have made a joint mediatic effort to lift the veil on what they call Age of Conan's "promising future", revealing selected new features which are now in production - including a massive new PvP update called "To the death" (going live near the end of June), followed later this year by a MASSIVE (ed. - notice the CAPS) free update called "Kingship!". Which will basically be a guild alliance warfare system.

During autumn, a reward and character evolution system called "Powerpoints" will also be introduced, along with the mandatory new areas and dungeons in the months ahead, improved player-made villages and Battlekeep systems, social updates, and the generic "more adventures". You'll find all of these detailed below. (...)

 Continue reading 'The Future of Age of Conan'...

The self-professed, made-in-Taiwan future of free-to-play MMOs, to be more precise. This is how the German publisher Frogster announced its latest acquisition, Runes of Magic - a fantasy MMORPG originally developed by the Taiwanese studio Runewaker Entertainment under the title Radiant Arcana, which is already completed and currently in open-beta phase in China.


This definitely lends credence to Frogster's plans of releasing it before Christmas 2008 in Germany, and "soon afterwards" in English-speaking territories. But the rest of their communique isn't too convincing in regard to their earlier claim, about Runes of Magic being "the future". Just the usual set of features, topped by the promise of a "free2play, no monthly fees, free download" MMO. You can find them all listed on the Runes of Magic website, along with the game's story, various artworks, and a "beta infoletter". The first screenshots are just below this abstract from Frogster's announcement: (...)

 Continue reading 'Runes of Magic, The Future Of Free MMOs'...