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Legal action between ZAM and Curse results in dismissal
So remember when Curse introduced their database last year called WoWDB, and we pointed out that it bore a strong resemblance to that other popular WoW database, Wowhead? Turns out ZAM, the owners of Wowhead after the acquisition a little while ago, agreed: completely under the radar last May, they filed a lawsuit for copyright infringment to the tune of no less than $1.5 million. ZAM says in the suit, copies of which we've obtained, that they've "expended substantial resources to maintain, update, and promote use of the WOWHEAD website so that it would become... one of the most recognized, and utilized websites designed to attract individuals" who play World of Warcraft. They claimed that WoWDB stole their look and layout purposely to create confusion among customers. This story wasn't reported in the WoW community at the time -- we hadn't heard about it at all until now.And then, in January of this year, the case was dismissed completely by a judge. We've also seen a copy of the order for dismissal, and from what it says, both sides wanted out: "Pursuant to the parties' stipulation for dismissal, the court hereby dismisses the above-captioned action without prejudice." We don't have any information, however, why the case was suddenly dismissed, but there may have been an agreement made between the two parties -- either money changed hands or WoWDB offered to change its look (as you can see, there's still many similarities between the two sites). Or, as a third option, ZAM just decided it wasn't worth fighting -- according to the comments and activity on both sites, WoWDB doesn't seem to be a serious threat to Wowhead.We've contacted both sides for comment, and we'll let you know if we hear anything from either one. On the front of it, this looks like ZAM was merely covering themselves -- they filed suit just in case, but never found cause to follow through. But there may be some other agreement between these two companies that lead to the case's dismissal.
Warhammer Herald recommends Book of Grudges mod
If you're hoping to add a little extra something to Warhammer Online's Realm vs. Realm gameplay, look no further than the "Dammaz Kron: The Great Book of Grudges" mod. Valkea, the creator of Dammaz Kron, describes the mod as a "PvP Black-Book" designed to look like a new section of the Tome of Knowledge. All transgressions against you are recorded in The Great Book of Grudges, as are your own acts of retaliation. Best served cold, and all that.It's also gotten the nod from Mythic Entertainment. In their words, "The Book of Grudges transforms your fighting experience by adding a meta game and another objective to RvR. Just in case you need another reason to perpetuate the extermination of your enemy Dammaz Kron has your answer." Dammaz Kron can be downloaded from Curse and all the info about the mod is listed there as well. Mythic has announced the first expansion to Warhammer Online! Check out the announcement itself, the two brand-new classes coming to the game, and the enormous new dungeon/zone slated for a few months away! Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
The Queue: I like fire
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Yesterday we had a question about the little fiery looking thumbnail I use at the end of almost every edition of The Queue. What the heck is it? Well, it's pretty hard to make out the details as a little thumbnail, but it's a picture of Volkhan from Halls of Lightning. The big red flare is a fireburst that comes up when he wangs his anvil with his hammer. I thought the bigger version looked pretty cool, so I kept using the thumbnail.alpha5099 asked... I keep seeing references to EU-Magtheridon, and I'm absolutely fascinated by a server with such a ridiculously unbalanced player ratio. Does anyone know how that happened? Is there some reason an insane number of Horde players are there? Did the Horde just start getting the edge and the Alliance players left for less ganky pastures, and it's gone out of control since then?
Essential Addons for Wrath of the Lich King
Wrath of the Lich King brings with it a host of new and exciting features. Even with all these new features you'll want the latest addons as you level your way through Northrend. We've compiled a listing of key Wrath of the Lich King addons. We'll update this post as much as is warranted. Feel free to leave a comment if you notice a download link isn't working. But at the same time, please do not post any download links of your own – we'll have to delete it as we want to ensure all the addons we link are virus free and safe for everyone. If you need help installing an addon, check out our handy how-to guide. The essential addon list after the break.
Preview of the new minimap mod SexyMap
The mod I'm about to talk about isn't some essential combat mod. It doesn't vastly change how you play the game. It won't help you in the arena or in raid dungeons, or even RP. What will it do? It will make your minimap look totally sweet.From one of the original authors of Omen and the maker of Chatter (among other things) comes the simply (and appropriately) named SexyMap. Using spell effects already in the game files (I believe the default uses Hand of Freedom as the outside ring and Hand of Salvation on the inside), SexyMap makes your map look... sexy. It's difficult to see just how awesome it is from pictures, but I don't have video handy, unfortunately. What you can't see there is the two rings are animated, one moving clockwise and the other counter-clockwise.
Behind the Curtain: Too much information
So, just the other day I hit level 30 on my latest World of Warcraft alt – a Dwarf Priest. I hopped on the nearest Gryphon to Ironforge to train up some skills, and noticed that I had unread mail. Skipping gaily towards the nearest mailbox, I was most surprised to find a letter from Ultham Ironhorn, the Dwarven Riding Trainer, letting me know that I was now eligible to purchase a mount from his fine establishment. For those of you unfamiliar, originally in WoW, you had to wait until you'd hit level 40 before you could buy a mount. Patch 2.4.3 changed that, and lowered the level requirement for a standard mount to level 30. I hadn't read anywhere though, that, upon reaching level 30, your character would be told about it. Back in-game, I checked with my guildies to see if they knew anything about the mail. They didn't, none of them having levelled up an alt in some time, so it was news to all of us. We all agreed that Blizzard must have implemented it to point players in the direction of a mount, when they might otherwise have missed out on the early availability. It got me thinking about information and the availability of it in game.
WoW Insider speaks with Curse and Wowace
Saturday afternoon I had an opportunity to sit down with Kaelten, known both for his work with Wowace and now Curse.com. We spoke of many of the concerns users had about transitioning from Wowace to Curse for their addons, and the reasoning behind the merger.Kaelten was more than happy to answer any questions I had, and we jumped right in as soon as we found somewhere to sit for lunch. His explanation for the reasoning between the merger was what we had known (and reported) from the first time we heard of it: It was, essentially, necessary for survival. Wowace was not something that could stand on its own very long. The sheer amount of bandwidth they chewed through was unbelievable, especially on patch days. We're talking 350 GB per hour. The average person has less than 350 GB in their PC, and Wowace (and now Curse) chews through it like it's nothing.
Addon Spotlight: Curse Client updater
Well, BlizzCon is over and while there were few surprises, I'll have a review and analysis of interface and addon news from BlizzCon in a special Creamy GUI Center tomorrow. In the mean time we have the big 3.0 patch today to deal with. So this week on Addon Spotlight we'll take a look at how to securely and safely update your addons using the Curse Gaming Client. Let's get to it!
SK Gaming splits into separate PvE and PvP guilds
We received news yesterday that SK Gaming, the multinational raiding and arena juggernaut, has decided to split into separate PvE and PvP branches. Well, perhaps that's a little misleading. SK Gaming had partnered with the famed Curse of EU-Veknilash (the same people behind Curse Gaming and World of Raids), and their combined efforts resulted in three world-firsts in Sunwell under the SK Gaming tag (Felmyst, M'uru, and Kil'Jaeden). That success aside, they reached the decision that the pursuit of competitive raiding and e-sport supremacy under the auspice of the same guild just wasn't working, and that the game demanded an entirely different vision and means of guild organization for each goal.According to Mekon, the guild master of the former PvE branch (which remains on EU-Veknilash but is now renamed "Put Your Name Here" -- you can't accuse them of not having a sense of humor), it was the PvE players' decision to leave, "absolutely nothing changes within the guild," and they will continue to pursue world firsts in Wrath. We interviewed Neg, one of their resto Shamans, not long after they got their world-first Kil'Jaeden kill. This was less than a month after the major U.S. raiding guild Death and Taxes had gone the way of the dinosaur, and Neg had some insightful observations concerning what was happening to raiding guilds with Wrath of the Lich King on the not-too-distant horizon. At the time I privately hoped that other major raid guilds wouldn't suffer D&T's fate, and...well, this isn't really it, I suppose. Both sides of SK Gaming will continue to operate, just independently of each other (from both an organizational and financial perspective). If nothing else I find it a fairly thought-provoking commentary on the degree of Blizzard's success attempting to legitimize arena as a true e-sport, and how the game's top players see the PvP side of the game increasingly disconnected from its PvE counterpart.
The Shadow Odyssey's Befallen dungeon featured at EQ2 website
SOE posted a preview of Befallen, one of the classic EverQuest dungeons that will be reborn in EverQuest II's upcoming The Shadow Odyssey expansion. Included are several screenshots of the dungeon along with its background in the game's lore. The aesthetic of the old Befallen seems to be preserved -- and amplified -- in EQ2's newer graphics engine.The story goes something like this: a bunch of Knights of Marr built the keep in the Commonlands as a headquarters in their quest to chase off the giants and orcs that terrorized the people in the countryside. Their fortress became their tomb, though, as orcs laid siege to the keep. A warrior named Gynok Moltor came to them to help, but it turned out that he had been cursed. He betrayed the Knights and turned Befallen into the dangerous mass grave that it is today.It's standard fantasy fare. Cool enough, but we're sure most of you just care about the loot. Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
WowAceUpdater goes the way of the dodo
At noon today, Kaelten of WowAce fame posted a thread on the WowAce forums discussing the future of their massively popular project. There's quite a bit of nitty gritty coder lingo that you don't really need to know unless you're involved in WowAce, but there's other important information for us normal folk, too.First, a few obvious things are pointed out. One, WowAce became big. Really, really big, and I imagine much bigger than they had ever imagined. The way WowAce is set up doesn't work so well with that much of a load and that many mods and packages being developed. Additionally, the amount of bandwidth they used monthly is absolutely enormous. To quote: "As it currently stands files.wowace.com pushes out an incredible amount of addon updates. In an average month we're talking about more than thirty terabytes of data! In a busy month clearing sixty is no problem, and I don't even want to talk about what happens on major patch days."
Interview with AoC CM pulls some punches
If there's one individual whose position we're glad we haven't been in for the past few months, it's that of Age of Conan Community Manager, Glen "Famine" Swan. We've long been aware of the trials and tribulations that are part of the every day life of your average CM. It's an experience that is trying enough to have forged the bonds of a community management... community. We've seen only small snippets of the almost illogical anger that Age of Conan's troubled launch has provoked, and we can only imagine what it must be like being the front man for such player disappointment.We were a little disappointed then to see that a recent interview with Famine really failed to dig into any juicy tidbits. Of course, we understand that he wouldn't be able to recount any of the truly horrible details of the last month in print, lest he raise the ire of his community, but we'd have hoped some of the questions would have at least attempted to give the poor man an outlet. At the very least, he mentioned that they're trying to put together a class lead system on the official forums that should help channel feedback to the developers more efficiently than at present.
Arena Junkies fires up S3 Calculator, hooks up with Curse
Arena Junkies has been pretty busy lately -- not only are they updating their Season 3 title calculator in preparation for the new Season, they've partnered with Curse to improve their service. The Season Three Arena Title Calculator by Arena Junkies is created by some pretty involved techniques. They start by plunging a few teams in each bracket and battlegroup as far down the ranking ladder as they can possibly get. Then, the theorycrafters at Arena Junkies do their very best guess about how many teams are inactive. Using that data, they math out what ranking you'll probably need to achieve a given title. As AJ points out, though, this is just an estimate. They don't have the behind-the-scenes data anlysis to guarantee what will be required, and the ranks will be at least a little fluid until the very end. However, as you grind your Arena ranking as high as you can tonight, this'll give you an idea of what title you might expect when S4 starts. Assuming you meet the requirements, of course. The Curse announcement last week was a little more vague, and there weren't definites about what the partnership would mean for Arena Junkies. According to Tyveris, the existing staff members are still in charge of the site, and very little will actually change. What it will allow them to do, however, is add new features in the coming months. It'll be interesting to see what those features are, and whether it's part of that premium package that was mentioned a few months ago.
WOWDB introduces Simplified Chinese language option, promises more upgrades
In more international WoW news, Curse's foray into the realm of WoW database sites, WOWDB, is now available in Simplified Chinese, joining Allakhazam among the major database sites that offer the language. In addition, Curse's announcement post also hints at additional features coming to WOWDB "soon," which seems like it may be a direct answer to Wowhead's recent extensive features upgrade. WOWDB has already been accused of copying Wowhead in the past (and, to be fair, opposite accusations have been made). Of course, Wowhead doesn't yet have a Simplified Chinese language option, so in this case, it seems WoWDB has come out ahead. We'll be eager to see if these new options coming to WOWDB make it stand out from the pack.
Curse CEO hints at 'premium subscription' coming later this year
CEO and founder of Curse.com Hubert Thieblot revealed this week that Curse plans to launch a premium subscription service later this year. The service would cost $4 per month and is slated for release some time in July 2008. Thieblot mentioned the new service last Tuesday at a social media conference hosted by Under the Radar. Curse hopes to get 35,000 subscribers to the new paid service by the end of 2008, working up to a total of 100,000 members by the end of 2009. The conference presentation is available on YouTube, but unless you're a masochist or a business conference groupie, you should only watch the video if you have insomnia.We have no idea what this premium content entails -- what you see in the presentation slide is all we've got to go on -- but it's a good bet that it will be out-of-game services. Maybe something like Armory data, player profiles, or even some kind of addon profiling system. Will it be worth another $4 a month on top of what we already pay for WoW? We'll have to wait and see.Update: Mr. Thieblot has commented below and said that whatever the service offers will be "nothing that has been hinted at so far."
Darkfall developer sets the record straight
In a recent post over at Darkfall's official forums, associate producer Tasos Flambouras gives us an unofficial update for the community on the state of the game as it stands. He spends most of the post shooting down rumors created by the community, and letting us know the reasons behind the most recent delay in any official updates.As for real information though, we get word of the thought behind the universal banking system and how vehemently opposed the devs are to introducing even more NPCs to the game. Their reasoning is that there are already too many games out there with controllable NPCs to add to your party. Flambouras says, "Even if it's all the rage in MMOs lately we want to further the multiplayer real-time aspect with Darkfall rather than go the other direction. There is no progress in having to introduce single player features such as more NPCs to a MMORPG."
The Age of Conan Armory coming soon
Curse Gaming sent along word that they've got a project in the works that should be a boon to every Age of Conan player. Linked from the official AoC site, even, this web-based database appears to be an analog to the World of Warcraft Armory service for Funcom's game. The current version of the website is very limited in functionality. At the moment it just features a Feat calculator for the game's twelve classes. The Curse site hints at future additions, including an item database, maps, syndication tools (assumably for characters) and even a wishlist for future items. If you're a player, make sure to keep your eyes on the site for those updates.
Aion gameplay video shows some personality
Over at Curse there's an interesting video preview of NCsoft's upcoming Aion as well as a couple of screenshots showing off the game's flexible user interface. The entire interface can be adjusted to however a player would prefer and in the screenshot above you can see that Aion is well aware of the popularized WoW-style layout. We're always in favor of letting players easily organize their interface in the way they see fit.
WoW addons dominate Google Trends
There's no denying that patch 2.4 has been one hot topic today. Not just here on WoW Insider, either. I'd say it's safe to assume Google is a pretty good indicator of what's what on the internet, and Google Trends reveals all.Patch 2.4 and many other WoW-related things dominated March 25th as the most popular Google searches. As of 8 PM CST, out of the top ten searches, only two were unrelated to the World of Warcraft. As you can see above, the Omen Threat Meter ranked number one. Not particularly surprising, since it is one of the most used WoW addons around. If WoW is going to dominate the charts, it should be no shock Omen took the lead, especially on a patch day.As the night goes on, things are tapering off a little bit, but the numbers were still very impressive for most of the day. A screencap of what Omen's search traffic throughout the day looked like is just behind the cut, and you can see pretty clearly when people discovered the patch was coming.
Curse's terms of use deserve a closer look
There's a storm brewing over in the UI & Macros forum, and it's about the terms of use for popular add-on site Curse. If you use mods at all, you're almost certainly aware of the site; I go there all the time. They're probably the biggest mod site right now. So it comes as something of a surprise to me that such a pillar of the scene would have what seems to be a pretty abusive set of terms service. According to the analysis conducted in this forum thread, Curse's ToU "specifically removes any and all copyright that we as authors have on our addons." Yikes! There are other bad parts of the ToU language too, including that Curse can change the ToU at any time without notifying authors. Of course, the site is within its rights to impose any ToU it wants on the users, but it's not nice to take control of creations out of authors' hands. I am not a lawyer, so it's altogether possible that I'm interpreting some of this incorrectly. The forum thread, however, claims that lawyers looked at Curse's terms and agreed that the interpretation is correct.Until these provisions are changed -- and Curse promises that they will be -- I recommend mod authors use other sites like WoWInterface or wowui.incgamers.com. In writing this article I read the terms of use for those sites -- or rather, tried to. IncGamers doesn't even have their ToU up! But they've been a pretty well-behaved site in the past (they used to be worldofwar.net), so I trust them. WoWInterface's terms of service didn't seem to have anything like what Curse has, and a source at the site assured me that "we never touch an author's zip file without their knowledge and consent, ever." WI has a good history of respecting the community and the authors. Curse folks, are we all reading this wrong? Is there something in this issue that's being missed?Update: As several of Curse's employees have helpfully pointed out to me, the new ToU are much better. However, I still have reservations about them.
