players
Latest
Dungeon Finder reactions from players
The long-awaited Dungeon Finder is finally out on the servers, and people have had a few days with it now, so let's jump in and gauge some early reactions. Overall, it seems to be a big hit -- tanks and healers are jumping into groups right away, and while we've heard of longer waits for DPS, it doesn't seem bad at all. While of course the initial flood of people brought instance servers down (I'd expect to see the same thing happen during peak time this weekend), everything seems to be working well since then: disenchanters are correctly dropping items out, loot is getting distributed correctly, and groups are doing what they were always supposed to do: rake in the badges and rewards for players. Hots and Dots actually has a long take on the Dungeon Finder, including "15 Things You Should Know," like that tanks and healers are still as important as ever (if you sign up for DPS and another role, you likely won't be doing DPS), and that we're finding out very quickly just how skilled or knowledgeable people really are ("the Party Leader will be forced to confess midway [through] that they actually know nothing about the instance").
Taiwanese player earns all of the achievements
Yes, that's right, all of them. You've probably heard about this already (we're a little late to the party, just because it seemed a little fishy to us at first), but a player in Taiwan has an Armory profile that claims he (or she, though the character is a male tauren druid) has achieved all 986 achievements available in the current version of World of Warcraft. That's everything, from Loremaster, to all the ToGC Tributes, to the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday rewards, even Insane in the Membrane. If there's something you can do in WoW, this guy seems to have done it. He hasn't finished this year's Winter's Veil achievement yet (it's not actually possible until the 15th), but he has done a PvP achievement twice, apparently, so he's still 986/986. I'm still a little doubtful: as you can see above, the Feats of Strength bar looks like it's empty, but this guy actually has lots of Feats done as well, including all of the realm first feats (including First Aid, and Leatherworking, all within days of each other). It just doesn't seem possible that one character could do all of that. But it all seems to check out, so we'll give him his due: Congratulations, "Littlegray" of Wrathbringer. And just in case you hadn't heard: there are other games to play. Update: I thought Insane in the Membrane was an achievement, but it is actually a Feat, and he does not have it. Thanks commenters for the clarification.
Local paper profiles TCG $50k winner
This is cool -- after local paper the Winter Park/Maitland Observer (near Orlando, Florida) heard that the winner of Upper Deck's last WoW TCG World Championships was from the same area, they went and found him, fittingly, in a game store. William Postlewaite, a.k.a. Billy P, won $50,000 just for playing the WoW Trading Card Game very, very well. While there's not a lot of info on the actual mechanics behind his win (this is a local paper, after all), it's very interesting to get a look at the player himself -- he works at the game store while going to school to learn finance, and spent about two months testing decks of cards with a friend before he found the one that he thought could go all the way. And what's he doing with all of his winnings? He's planning to buy a house. Smart play. You always hear about these wild sums being won by card game players -- good to know that this set of winnings is going to what seems like a good guy.
Survey says 15% of overall gameplay time is in an MMO
Our friends at Joystiq reported on this fascinating survey by GamesIndustry.com that broke down responses from 13,000 US and EU citizens about how they spend their gaming time. While they don't have specific numbers for World of Warcraft, the survey says [PDF link] that overall, 15% of gaming time is spent playing MMOs. US players spend about 14% of their gaming time on MMOs, while EU players range from 8% to 16% by country. In the EU, 14% of all players have played an MMO, and in the US, 21% of everyone playing games has played a massively multiplayer online game. Again, these numbers aren't specifically for World of Warcraft (and because the survey went down to age 8 and up, they do include the vast virtual worlds aimed at children, like Club Penguin and Disney's Toontown, which probably throw the numbers off quite a bit), but they do show the effect that WoW has had on the gaming population over the last five years. Five years ago, MMOs were definitely a niche -- some hardcore gamers played them, but most people didn't have the Internet connections to play an online game, much less pay a subscription for one. Nowadays, MMOs represent over one out of every ten minutes of overall playtime, and those numbers are only going to go up.
Defeating the anxiety of running your first instance
One of my favorite WoW blogs, HoTs and DoTs, has a great post up about Dungeon Groups 101 -- the very basics of running instances. You may think that there's nothing more basic to the game than getting in an instance with four people and taking down a few bosses and trash, but you'd be surprised. Even in a social game like this, one of the first hurdles newbies have to deal with is joining a group to play together. They worry that they'll do things wrong and that other people will make fun of what they're wearing or playing, and that worry keeps them from enjoying my absolute favorite part of the game. Cassandri's writeup is an excellent read for anyone who feels that way (and feel free to pass on this post to any friends or relatives you know who've been too leery to join an instance yet). She does do some basic knowledge stuff in there, just hints on the classes and what they can all do -- and our WoW Rookie posts will help out with that stuff too -- but more importantly, she says what lots of new players need to hear: that messing up in an instance isn't that big a deal, and that playing together with others (which is the reason why we're all playing an MMO rather than a single player game in the first place) is more than worth getting past any anxiety around joining a group. I've read a lot of comments like the one Cassandri quotes in her post, too, and I'm here to tell you: if you haven't run an instance yet, it's time to stop worrying about what it'll be like and give it a try.
Ghostcrawler and the "hybrid tax"
Ghostcrawler has put a significant sticky up on the forums about what he calls the "hybrid tax" in terms of PvE play -- there's been some back and forth lately on the forums about hybrid classes and what they should and shouldn't be able to do, and GC wants to put any confusion about what Blizzard intends "hybrids" to be to rest. Very basically, he says that there are three roles in the game (tanking, healing, and DPS), and if a class can respec to perform a different role, it's considered a hybrid class. Otherwise, it's a "pure" class. This means a few things: pure classes, he says, should have slightly higher DPS ("all things being equal," and when does that ever happen?), because they don't have the option to switch out. There's no rule as to how much better that is, but as a tradeoff of rerolling being the only way for "pures" to switch, they get to be a little better. That's the "hybrid tax," and mages, hunters, rogues, and warlocks don't have to pay it. Hybrids, however, do, and that means that paladins, druids, priests, shamans, and to a certain extent, warriors and death knights, will in Blizzard's view never be able to equal "pure" classes in terms of DPS output, with everything else being equal. You may love your ret pally, and he may be in uber gear, but he should never be able to pour out as much damage as an equally specced and geared hunter, because you can switch to healing, and the hunter can't.
The Daily Grind: Why do you play?
It's been a while since we actually asked the most basic question one can possibly ask an MMO player: Why do you play MMOs?It's a good question too, because we all have different reasons for why we play. Some of us love to explore the world, some of us love to talk and party with others, some of us want to accomplish the goals the game sets forth for us, and still others of us want to kill stuff -- lots and lots of stuff. These are traditionally known as the Bartle psychological gamer types, taken from gamer/developer/researcher Richard Bartle's paper on player culture.So readers, please tell us why you play and feel free to discuss with your neighbors. It's interesting!
China Blue HD crosses over to the UK, third Opium War inevitable
We've given HD DVD's bastard child China Blue HD its due for a good start in its native land, but now that U.K. Importer GBAX has made a few units available it's time for English language buyers to at least consider this Blu-ray alternative. Of course, with a £259.99 ($413.22 U.S.) pricetag for this plain TCL player, AV and HD cables, plus 14 CBHD movies (The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Invasion, The Island, Flood, Poseidon & 8 Chinese-only flicks) to get you started the barrier to entry is high, but as shown in the unboxing / preview video -- embedded after the break, watch for ninjas -- the experience is very familiar. As Format War Central points out, the 220/240Hz power cord makes things complicated for the U.S. and other places outside Europe, but hardcore HD DVD holdouts are used to a world filled with only Warner and Universal movies already, so why not give the other blue laser flavor a try? [Via Format War Central]
Garrosh, a raid boss?
I don't necessarily agree with everything we highlight here on WoW.com, but just because a post seems wrong doesn't mean it isn't interesting to talk about. Such is the case with Loregy's latest post -- they suggest that after all is said and done, the much beloved (whoops, not) Garrosh Hellscream will end up at the wrong end of our weapons. They say that the big fight between Garrosh and Thrall (rudely interrupted by the Wrath of the Lich King) means that Garrosh is in for a whooping at some future point. Matt basically said as much in his post a while back -- Garrosh is a flawed hero, to say the least, and it's likely that sometime here, those flaws are going to catch up with him, possibly in the form of us players.Now of course whether that's true or not is an entirely different question from whether that's what you want or not. Kisirani has already said that there are sides of Garrosh we haven't seen yet, and Blizzard could go either way with him -- either put him through some troubles and teach him to learn some lessons (right now the guy is pretty dumb), or do what Loregy is suggesting and turn him into a raid boss (wouldn't be the first faction leader with such a fate, to be honest). Personally, I think Garrosh is headed for a little redemption -- all he really needs, to my mind, is a little experience and humility, and, as I understand it, war can teach those pretty well.
Interview with Paul Sams, Steelers owner
As we reported the other week, Blizzard COO Paul Sams is now co-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers (who are stepping up lately), and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hit up Mr. Sams for a quick interview about being at the intersection of Azeroth and Steeler Nation. Turns out the man who collects everything Blizzard has also been a Steelers fan since he was four years old, even though he's from California. And we were right with all of the speculation: he got connected with the Steelers management through Legendary Pictures producer Thomas Tull, and when the chance came to own part of the franchise, he jumped.They also talk about expanding out to Carnagie Mellon University -- Blizzard has a thriving educational program in Irvine, but Sams says that they are looking to expand that, so Pittsburgh is a possibility. And finally, he says that the Warcraft movie is being scripted at the moment -- Sam Raimi will do Spider-man 4, and then it's all Azeroth for him. In the meantime, let's see about getting some of this Steelers news in the game -- even if we can't get an epic football to toss around, surely we'll at least see a Tauren somewhere named "Bill COW-her," right?
Jante Law and player psychology
Larisa over at the Pink Pigtail Inn has been posting some really interesting things about psychology and the World of Warcraft lately. The other week she wrapped up a little survey (along with the folks at Dreambound) about personalities of players and how they correspond to the roles they play in game, and this week she's got a little analysis up about something called the Jante Law, developed by a Norwegian author for a novel back in the 1930s. You can read the whole idea on her page or over on Wikipedia, but basically it all boils down to one "rule" for overseeing each individual member of a community: "Don't think that you are more special than us."She applies the law to the WoW community at large, and says that without knowing it, comment trolls and those who attack people who differentiate themselves on the forums (including the folks who caused Ghostcrawler to rethink his role there) are following this law, and attacking those who stick their neck out as different. Personally, I don't know that the "haters" in the community give it that much thought -- most of the time when they do attack others, they do it to try and build themselves up rather than enforce any community standard ("You've won 1,000 AV matches? Big deal, I win in there all the time.").
AGDC09: Easy voice chat for PUGs with Puggable
If all you play is World of Warcraft, then you might not have heard of Vivox -- but they're the people providing integrated voice chat solutions for EVE Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies, Second Life, Fallen Earth, All Points Bulletin.. I'd go on, but you probably get the point. This week at AGDC, Vivox is spreading its wings with the announcement of two new web-based voice chat applications: Vivox Web Voice for Facebook and Puggable for World of Warcraft players. Though the two use the same technology, Puggable is definitely targeted at the WoW-playing audience. I had a chance to sit down and chat with Vivox about Puggable at AGDC, and, though I haven't had a chance to get hands-on time with it, I've got to say the idea has a lot of appeal.So what do you need to do to start chatting? Just fire up your web browser, point it to Puggable.com and create a chat room for your group. To invite others, all you need to do is share a link. The site will display character stats for your player from the armory (as seen in the above screenshot) for easy viewing by your entire group. And if you wish to select the instance you're running and the boss you're going to fight, Puggable will automagically pull up links for strategies, videos, and loot. No one needs to download or configure software (unless you're playing WoW with people who don't have web browsers... but that would just be silly) and there are no passwords to remember, share, or change. I'm hesitant to say it's fool-proof, but it certainly looks like group communication and organization simplified.Puggable is presently in closed beta (though if you're interested in testing it, you can sign up on their site) with plans for a more open beta in the next few weeks.
BlizzCon 2009: 15 Minutes on the Street
There are all kinds of people at BlizzCon, and the vast majority of them aren't developers or exhibitors -- they're players and Blizzard fans just like you who come out to see what Blizzard's got to show them. We spent a large amount of time this weekend talking to devs and exhibitors and gathering information, but we definitely also wanted to speak with players as well -- see what they thought of the show and how their experience went.Of course we talked with more players than we could ever fit here -- we ended up having over 1200 people stop by our meetup on Thursday night (and I did my best to shake hands with as many of them as I could), and all weekend long, players came up to us and said hi, telling us their classes and spec and what they liked and didn't like about the show and our site. Here's four small interviews that we had with players at the show, done by Robin Torres and I. It's just one tiny look at a few people walking around the 'Con, but it should give you a little insight into what the mood was like last weekend.
NPD: World of Warcraft has sold 8.6 million boxes at retail
Gamasutra has received an interesting stat from the good folks at NPD: after hearing that The Sims 3 sold over 800,000 copies in its first month, they were curious to see what kind of unit sales our own World of Warcraft has experienced. And the numbers are pretty big: among the original game and all of the expansion packs since the vanilla release over four years ago, NPD says 8.6 million boxes of WoW have been sold in the US. That's a little misleading if you're comparing it to actual subscription numbers: remember that this is over three different releases (so the actual number of all-time players, not current players, is probably 1/3 of that), and it includes different collectors' editions of each of the three game editions. So there are nowhere near 8.6 million US players of WoW -- that's just how many times players have come through the retail line with the various releases.What that is, however, is a lot of money. Gamasutra estimates that at an average of $30 for each unit sold (the vanilla game currently retails at $20, but the expansions all sell at $40, and of course the original game was more expensive once upon a time), that's $258 million in income for Blizzard. In short, Blizzard's making a mint at the retail counter, even before they sign anyone up for subscriptions.Then again, if you look at their own costs, those aren't insubstantial, either -- Activision's Bobby Kotick claimed that anyone starting up an MMO to compete with WoW would have to throw at least half a billion dollars into the mix just to get started, so we can presume Blizzard has spent at least $500 million on their staff, development, and hardware. So it's not like they're taking it all to the bank, though we can at least presume they're sitting firmly in the black.
China's Ministry of Culture approves WoW content
Blizzard has been having all kinds of issues trying to bring World of Warcraft back online in China, but here's one piece of good news for them: China's Ministry of Culture has gone through the game and approved all of the content in it. They apparently were concerned about some violent content (we know they've already made changes in the past to the Undead models), but that's now been cleared, and the only thing left is final approval by the General Administration of Press and Publication. There's no date on when that might happen, but it seems that will be soon (not soon(tm), just soon).Blizzard should be extremely happy to see these content checks cleared, as it means that they're not only that much closer to bringing the servers back online, but that they can also finally bring out Wrath of the Lich King there. The whole issue with Netease and The9 backed things up, and then these content checks were a problem, but hopefully most of the obstacles have been cleared by now, and Chinese players can soon start making their way back into the game and up to the snowy shores of Northrend.
Masi Oka developing MMO-related movie
Masi Oka plays the fan-favorite character Hiro on the television show Heroes, but that's not the only role he plays -- we've heard before that he's a big World of Warcraft player as well (which makes sense -- before his star turn on NBC's superhero show, he actually worked at Industrial Light and Magic developing water effects, so he's a geek at heart). And now he's using his MMO experience to create a movie: he's just signed a deal with Dreamworks to create a movie called "The Defenders," a family adventure about a group of teens playing an MMO who have to come together to have some adventures of their own. Both Oka and writer Gary Whitta are fans of WoW, so they're drawing on their experience in the game to put together the project. Oka tells the Hollywood Reporter that "the question came to me: What if you had to live up to the person you created in the virtual world?" He also cites The Goonies as an inspiration for the story, as an adventure that brings back an innocence found in those old Amblin Entertainment films.Sounds interesting. It might be aimed a little young for the average WoW player (even The Goonies, while considered a cult classic nowadays, was really aimed at kids in the '80s), but a film that can take a good look at the comparison between our in-game selves and their real-life counterparts (and have some fun doing it) would definitely be something to see. The project's only just getting underway now, but we'll keep an eye out for it.
An official server for South Africa
Here's an interesting post from what looks like a site in Zaire wondering if Blizzard will ever bring World of Warcraft to South Africa. It's true -- we all take it for granted that here in North America and Europe, the game is available, but in many parts of the world, it's not. And apparently there's a market in a place like South Africa -- Blizzard says they have about five to seven thousand players down there already (we'd assume they're playing on EU or US servers), and that probably doesn't count any of the players on private servers, which could be as many as 20,000. iGame is a division of an ISP called iBurst down there, and they say they're prepared to run an official server (within 24 hours' notice!) if Blizzard gives the OK, but Blizzard has told them that they need at least 40,000 players in the area to make it worth running an official server.There's another option called a "peering" server, which apparently does hook up to Blizzard's servers, but uses local connections and networks to make things a little faster. But again, Blizzard needs to assent to that, and it seems like they're hesitant at the moment.Oceanic realms have had issues for a long time, but at least the players there do have a chunk of servers dedicated to them. Are there any other major places in the world that don't have official WoW support yet? South America? India?
Dealing with temporary changes in-game
Larisa's got a good rant about something I've considered before in a slightly different context: players aren't very good at anticipating how temporary game changes will work out. We, as a group (not individually necessarily), are quite quick to judgment when we see changes to the game, and the word Larisa uses is "conservatism" -- she notes the examples of the reaction to the zombie outbreak and the Children's Week batleground issues, and says that players "tossed the gift away, like spoiled kids." We (again, in general, not you specifically) have a very short view of how temporary changes will affect the game, lambast Blizzard for changing what didn't need to be changed, and very often, when the dust settles and the zombies are gone or the event is over, we realize that it wasn't so bad after all.She's not talking about class changes here -- those are more permanent changes that affect the basic rules of the game. But specifically with temporary events (I'd even throw the Brewfest controversies, and the Headless Horseman complaints in the mix), players sometimes have reactions that are way out of proportion to the events themselves. These holidays and world events are temporary: shouldn't we just enjoy them while we can?It's definitely a valid point, and something to remember for the next time a temporary event throws off your usual routine in-game. The fact is that we players are spoiled -- Blizzard generally does a great job keeping this game fun, and so when even a little issue sneaks into the game during a temporary event. But Larisa promises that next time she gets shaken up by a temporary change, she'll give it another chance. Sounds like a great idea to me.
GamerDNA honored in AlwaysOn East 100
When it comes to communities where you can track your online gaming, there are tons to choose from. You can chat, message, list characters, post screenshots... sure. That said, one of our favorites has to be GamerDNA. Not only is the site run by a bunch of gamers who are absolutely passionate about what they do, but they aren't just working on their site and leaving it at that as so many other sites seem content to do. The people over at GamerDNA reach out into the community, using the information they've gathered from members to point out really interesting and enlightening things about how and why we're playing too - not just what we're playing. That's why when we heard they'd been honored this year as part of the AlwaysOn East 100, we were thrilled. The AlwaysOn East 100 award is a way to reward "private, emerging technology companies creating new business opportunities in high-growth markets." Essentially, what that means to those of you who aren't keeping an eye on tech startups is that they kick butt and take names - and people from gamers to investors - are taking notice. Frankly, it's a richly-deserved award for an awesome bunch of people we've been lucky enough to work with from time to time. We can't wait to see what the next 12 months holds for them as they continue building their site, and their community. Grats!
China Blue HD players revealed, second stage of the format war is officially on
China's alternative to Blu-ray finally has some hardware to show off, with players from TCL and Shinco making their debut this week. Priced at less than 2,000 yuan ($292) they're reportedly 40% cheaper than the competition, and while the promised support from Warner Bros. has yet to materialize it plans to release 100 movies on the CBHD format by the end of the year. That's about all the machine translation could help us make out beyond the usual promise of lower licensing fees for Chinese manufacturers, but a better look at the latest (and by far most legit, although that's not saying much) Blu-ray fighter is beyond the read link.[Via CDR Info]
