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WoW Archivist: Flight
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Flying is second nature to WoW players. We've been doing it for almost eight years now. Sure, we've adventured in a few flightless places, like the Isle of Thunder, the Isle of Giants, and the Timeless Isle. Even The Burning Crusade, where flying originated, had a no-fly zone on the Isle of Quel'Danas. (What is it with these isles anyway?) But almost always, since 2006, we've flown. And we always expected to, for the vast majority of our in-game time. Now, because of Blizzard's impassioned arguments against flight on Draenor, flying is suddenly controversial. If you look back, you can see why: flying has changed the game like no other feature before or since. Let's start where it all began, however, with classic WoW's humble flight paths. They used to be cool I'm about to express something that you may not believe. Once upon a time, flight paths were cool. Yep, I said it. Before flying mounts, when you couldn't even get a ground mount until level 40 and epic ground mounts were just a dream for most due to the steep cost, in that early version of the game where you spent most of your travel time walking or riding at the pace of a Throne of Thunder gastropod, flight paths were cool. Not only did they get you around the continent at the fastest possible speed, they gave you a cinematic view of Azeroth from the skies. It was the only time you could get that view from above. The first time most classic WoW players rode a gryphon or wyvern from A to B, we loved it. No other MMO at the time had anything like it. We felt like masters of the world -- at least, when we could afford to take the trip. Most players were broke in the early days, and using flight paths too liberally often meant forgoing buying a new skill when you leveled. Taking a flight path was an indulgence, a treat, instead of the annoying hassle we see them as today.
World of Warcraft film set to shoot in 2014
Rumors have swirled around the oft-delayed and reportedly troubled World of Warcraft movie for years, but Legendary Pictures finally appears to be ready to move forward with production. Producer Charles Roven confirmed to SlashFilm that World of Warcraft: The Movie 3D IMAX Experience (suggested title) begins shooting in early 2014. Says Roven, "First quarter 2014 we're going to shoot that movie." Duncan Jones, director of Moon and Source Code, is taking the helm. Legendary still hasn't announced a release date or any plot details, but we can assume that the release date is Soon™ and the plot will revolve around humans, orcs, and a whole lot of sparkleponies.
World of Warcraft releases a new member of the sparklepony family
The Internet exploded with rage when World of Warcraft released a mount for $25 the first time around. But it sold well, and as a result we've seen several new mounts released for the game over the years. So the new Swift Windsteed likely won't raise many eyebrows over its release or its now-familiar price point, which is the same $25 you have probably come to expect. As with previous special mounts, the Swift Windsteed can operate as a flying mount and will scale to match your highest riding speed, making it a purely cosmetic option. The unlock is account-wide once purchased, giving all present and future characters a free mount for all-purpose use in perpetuity. So if you collect mounts or just feel like you could use a qilin to carry you across the skies of Azeroth, you've got reason to be excited.
50% off all Blizzard store mounts this week
This offer was just announced by Blizzard in the EU, and if previous promotions are anything to go by, it will be announced by Blizzard US very shortly. This offer allows the purchase of the Celestial Steed, the Winged Guardian, or the Heart of the Aspects for half price, which, in the EU, equates to €10 or £8.50. In the US, all three mounts are available for $12.50 each. With Christmas fast approaching, you may want to leave this article open on the computer of a family member, or a good friend, or maybe this is the perfect time to pick up a mount for someone special. If you're planning to give a mount as a gift, do remember that, while the codes can be redeemed on any account via the Item Redemption Page, they are region-specific, so players wishing to purchase a mount in the US will need to do so via the US version of the pet store. It follows, then, that players wishing to buy a mount in the EU need to visit the EU pet store. Within those regions, though, there are no country-specific limitations. Of course, these mounts count towards the various mount achievements available in-game, and with the changes in patch 5.0.4, are available on every character, rather than just on the one they were redeemed for. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
SOE Live 2012: Dave Georgeson on the business side of the EQ franchise
There were many terrific panels this year at SOE Live, and as usual, there's a very good dialogue between the players and the developers on a variety of issues. Among them was one that looked at the EverQuest franchise from a different perspective than usual. Instead of discussing expansions, class balance, game mechanics, or itemization, it addressed the business model behind the games. Over the past two years, both EQ and EQII have seen enormous changes, but even if you go further back, you'll see a dramatic transition away from the traditional subscription model. Dave Georgeson, Director of the EverQuest franchise, gave a talk that shed some new light on the philosophy behind some of the changes. In addition, he outlined some upcoming changes to the SOE update cycle, marketplace, and other areas of monetization. We've got all the details below, and some of the changes are not at all what you'd expect!
The Daily Grind: Have you ever bought a sparkle pony?
Two years ago, a marketing firm produced a study showing that 75% of gamers partake of microtransactions in their online games. Not long after that study was published, World of Warcraft enraged opponents of "double-dipping" by kicking off the sale of a $25 luxury mount that gamers pseudo-affectionately dubbed the sparkle pony. And then EverQuest II released a mount for a similar fee. And then TERA. And then RIFT. For all the hatred these high-end cash-shop mounts provoke, people are buying them -- enough people to make it a model worth copying. Some of these subscription games will sell sparkle anything. I'll fess up first: I bought myself a sparkle pony when Blizzard put the mount on sale for 10 bucks a while back, and I love it (it reminds me of celestial gear and creatures in Guild Wars, so I was weak!). But I still feel a little guilty. What about you? Have you ever bought an overpriced mount for cash in an MMO? Why did you do it, and do you feel the pang of guilt I do about supporting a double-dipping subscription game? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
RIFT offers a new cat mount for sale
In a bold move not at all reminiscent of the actions of any other gaming company, Trion Worlds has launched a new product for RIFT players to purchase via the account page. It's a special mount, a white tiger that we imagine would be extremely sparkly due to all of the gold trim and so forth. And it can be yours for the low price of $15, which is $10 less than it would be if it cost $25! Tongue-in-cheek jokes aside, the White War Tiger was originally an exclusive bonus for players of RIFT over in Korea. The mount has been ported over to the US version for a limited time so that more players can access it. If you've already got your wallet out, just log into the main site and check in the same spot for the game edition upgrades to get your very own tiger. While it may sparkle, you can take solace in the fact that it does not fly. [Thanks to soundersfc.tif for the tip!]
Pony up $25 for TERA's new Night Mare mount
Remember when everyone was a lot of gamers were outraged that Blizzard dared to charge 25 bucks for a cash shop item in a subscription game? Well, times have changed, folks, because now such behavior is generally expected. Sony Online Entertainment jumped on the bandwagon shortly after the sparkle pony tipping point, Funcom followed suit, and dozens of other companies have done the same in recent years. The newest member of the double-dippers club is En Masse, which is offering up a fiery-hooved TERA Night Mare steed for $24.99. Frugal players can take solace in the fact that their half-the-price-of-the-whole-game mount is available to all the characters on their account, and you can read further details about the beast at the official TERA website.
New Winged Lion mount coming soon to the Blizzard store
Blizzard has posted to its Facebook wall that the above mount will soon be coming to the Blizzard store. We don't know the official name of the mount (although datamining points to its being called a Winged Lion, which would make sense), the price, or any other details. Stay tuned here at WoW Insider. We'll get you any other information we have on this mount as it comes in.
The Daily Grind: What's the most ridiculous microtransaction you've seen?
With in-game item shops rapidly becoming the norm -- whether you rail against them, enjoy them or sit somewhere in the middle -- one gets the feeling that these companies are still trying to figure out just how much these virtual items and services are worth. From Blizzard's $25 sparkle pony to SOE's $55 guild namechange service, it seems that these companies are pushing as far as they can go to see what we'll cough up for our games. So what's the most ridiculous microtransaction you've seen in an MMO? What was so ridiculously overpriced or horribly mis-priced that you couldn't stop shaking your head and wondering out loud, "Who would pay for such a thing?" Mind you, this could even be something small, such as an item in the cash shop that you could easily get for free in the game itself. Today, be a consumer crusader and call out bad MMO microtransaction pricing! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Road to Mordor: Figgy pudding
For those of us who celebrate the holidays, right now is an insanely busy time of the year. There are presents to be wrapped, eggnog to be nogged, and looks of annoyance to be thrown at the radio when the music station decides to play that Do They Know It's Christmas? song for the sixth time that hour. It also means that winter holidays are hitting most major MMOs, including our beloved Lord of the Rings Online. This year, the Yule Festival is marked by the addition of a whole new area -- Winter-home -- and players are already neck-deep in the quests, snowball fights and theatrical hilarity. Turbine's done a spectacular job this year infusing a lot more life and fun into the festivals, from the shrew stomping this past spring to the Haunted Burrow this fall. Winter-home is, in many ways, a perfect capstone to a terrific year for the game, and it's a pretty enjoyable event from what I've seen so far. So grab that cute Hobbit or Dwarf and join me as we travel to the merriment of Winter-home this week!
Breakfast Topic: Will you be buying either of the new vanity pets?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Blizzard has been selling us in-game items for a while now; however, it has kept this to noncombat pets and mounts -- things that, outside of counting for totals for achievements, have little to no real effect on gameplay. Some of the items Blizzard does for self-profit, and sometimes it sells in-game pets for charity. People who buy the items get different reactions from the community; the sparkle pony especially got a lot of hate. Personally, I have not bought any of the real-money pets, partially because I am not a collector and partially because I felt that paying for downloadable content should add something major to the game experience. However, I am considering buying the Ragnaros pet for one main reason: because Rags is my major epic memory of vanilla WoW, I always felt he was an awesome model and so imposing, and many of us went around saying "too soon" on Vent. Have you bought any of the vanity pets? Do you buy them all as a completionist/collector? Do you pick and choose the ones you think look cool? Do you only buy the charity pets? Or do you avoid real money transactions in games altogether?
Breakfast Topic: Would you pay for extras in a F2P WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Lord of the Rings Online went free-to-play. "Free" is a questionable term, since they charge you for a fee for features you can technically live without but are still fairly important; things such as the gold cap, the ability to gain rested XP, and certain instances and PvP options require a fee. You get an enhanced version slightly above a trial, but you are still limited in what you can do in the free-to-play version of the game. While playing a game, I want to play the whole game, have the entire experience, and not feel as if I have been shortchanged by being on a limited version. Personally having purchased some of the Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age DLC, I would still have to pay for the added functionality. Not being able to fully advance my character and see large amounts of content would irritate me more than the cost would. Not being allowed to make use of content would make me feel like I was missing out. I want the choice of whether or not I do this instance, raid, or battleground. Could you imagine attempting to zone into Icecrown Citadel and seeing a message that says, "Requires a V.I.P. membership"? WoW has sold us a few items for extra money that are not required, but not having a Lil' XT or a sparkle pony doesn't affect your game functionality. LOTRO offers things like more bag spaces and removing the gold cap and even priority login for those with V.I.P. accounts. So if World of Warcraft decided to follow the LOTRO model and go semi-free-to-play, would you just play the free portion? Would you pay for the V.I.P. portion? Would you buy the other nickel and dime upgrades they have on top of that? Or would you quit WoW altogether, feeling as if Blizzard had shortchanged players by making us pay for things like bag space, PvP and raid availability?
Study finds that 75% of online gamers purchase virtual goods
Are you one of the steadfast, stalwart gamers who absolutely refuses to shell out money on cash shops, microtransactions and virtual services apart from subscriptions? If so, you're in the minority -- a study by VGMarket showed that three out of every four online gamers purchased a virtual good in the past year. This shouldn't come as a surprise, however. The survey isn't strictly indicative of MMORPG gamers; it was taken from over 2,200 players who were either part of PlaySpan Marketplace, Facebook, or purchasers of Ultimate Game Cards. Still, the results are fascinating, as a whopping 64% admitted to spending money on cash-shop items at least once a month, with 9% going so far as paying for virtual goods on a daily basis. Other statistics from the survey are equally interesting. PC gamers spent an average of $37 a year on virtual goods, and PayPal is by far the most popular method of payment. Oh, and the most-purchased good? In-game currency. (There, that shouldn't be too controversial, right? Right?) You can read the full survey results over at VentureBeat!
The Virtual Whirl: Ill-repute
Virtual environments have a generally poor reputation in many quarters, particularly in the mass-media. Much of that reputation is ill-deserved, and some of it is entirely fabricated (eg: by the mass-media). I have to ask, what's the big deal?
No microtransactions in Final Fantasy XIV, but many beta screenshots
There are plenty of contentious issues in the MMO field, but one of the biggest at the moment is microtransactions. Controversy over the C-Store, the $25 "sparkle pony" and subsequent imitators, and the general balance in the burgeoning free-to-play field have made the players of nearly every game form an opinion. But those who detest the practice can take heart -- according to Hiromichi Tanaka, Final Fantasy XIV will not be including any sort of in-game store. That's from a recent interview from JPgames.de, translated by the FFXIVCore fansite community. According to Tanaka, Square-Enix isn't necessarily opposed to the idea if the demand is present, but absolutely does not want in-game power to correspond to real-world money. He also confirmed that players will be allowed to pick their server at launch, unlike the server roulette present at Final Fantasy XI's launch. If the interview isn't enough to tide you over, the game's beta has been given a brief writeup from Famitsu (translated from the Japanese), and there's an excellent gallery of screenshots available here. There are just over two months until the launch of Final Fantasy XIV, and they look to be an exciting ride.
New scam tries to give you a free Celestial Steed
One of the sadder parts of this job is reporting on the numerous scams that sweep across the World of Warcraft landscape. It's no secret that your WoW account is valuable to thieves -- the entire gold-selling industry is built on a foundation of hacked accounts and stolen items. Their latest scam vehicle? Our inherent desire for sparkle ponies. Let's get two things straight off the bat: You did not just win a free Celestial Steed mount. That in-game tell is an attempt to steal your account. No one just bought you a Celestial Steed mount. That email you got is an attempt to steal your account If it sneaks by your spam filter, the latest scam email can be quite convincing. The message, which appears to be from sales@mail.blizzard.com, masquerades as a receipt for the purchase of the $25 Celestial Steed mount. Of course, the email is not actually from Blizzard (the "from" email is spoofed), and the links to Battle.net and Worldofwarcraft.com inside send you to a phishing website designed to steal your password or infect your computer with a keylogger. Attempt to collect your sparkle pony, and within a few short hours, your entire account will be under someone else's control. If you haven't put an authenticator on your account, the scammers will do it for you, locking you out of your own account and severely hampering your ability to get it back. More information on the latest scam, what you can do to protect yourself and what to do if you're a victim, all after the break.
[1. Local]: Chariots and cheats
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Dominic Hobbs, our warlock columnist, speculated about flying mounts for warlocks in this week's Blood Pact. He found the following suggestion the best one from the readers (though there were many): Tidelord: Dear Hobbs, While I agree with your idea of Metamorphosis or sprouting wings, I find the thought of being carried by my shoulders by a Doomguard to be utterly demeaning, and if you have seen the model for Invincible and the new "Sparkle Pony," you would see that while the wings are ingenious, the steed itself has legs stumpier than a dwarf's! No, my dear friend. For a warlock, the only mount suitable for us masters of shadow and fire is nothing else than an enormous, obsidian-black chariot with wheels made of the bones and skulls of magi, pulled by a pack of at least ten or twelve fel-green hellhounds. The animation would be so full of demonic splendor and top-of-the-line graphics that it would cause the video card of any cowardly mage to explode violently. Grow In Shadows- Caneyn Ravenshield, Future Worgen Warlock Continue reading for an in-depth discussion of cheating -- and what's this about breeding WoW.com staff?
One Shots: My little Sparklepony
With all the uproar about the recent sparklepony available in World of Warcraft, we weren't surprised to see a screenshot of the new mount land in the One Shots mailbox. Since we showed off some of our favorite mounts this morning as part of WRUP, it seemed a great time to show off the shiny new mount of our occasional One Shots contributor, Veng, who tells us more about her sparkly ride: "I have to admit, the idea of a sparkly vampire does nothing for me. Blizzards new Sparkle Pony (aka Celestial Mount), on the other hand, just caught my eye. It quickly had to join the stable of mounts and I've been flying all over just admiring the view. Here's a pic of my priest, Malidy, enjoying a ride. And if you are a priest and really want to get rid of the sparkle, just go shadow form. All the points of light in the mount disappear and the tack darkens, making it look like a ghostly mount." If you have a great image snapped in your favorite game, why not share it with us? It's really easy to do. Just email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here for everyone to check out, and give you the credit for sending it in. %Gallery-85937%
WRUP: All mounts are equal edition
This week's edition of WRUP takes its name from Basil, who kicked off this week's discussion of everyone's favorite mount with some controversy: Basil Berntsen: I'm not including a pic because all mounts are equal, unless they go faster. C. Christian Moore: Also Frostheim, WHOA. All mounts are equal? I think not. BB: Frostheim? Ouch... Chase Christian: All hunters are the same: their dumb pets pull the boss before everyone is ready, they FD to avoid a repair bill, and when the boss is dead, they roll on any weapon that drops. BB: Small price to pay, imo. I do way more DPS than you sissy dress wearers. BB (five minutes later): Wait, you play a rogue, of course. Well, I still... uh... do more DPS... provide better debuffs... can transfer threat better... I can roll on your leather. CCM: Gah, it's hard keeping track of you hunters, with your ever-changing pets and whatnot. I think there's only one solution to this problem: a level one battle to the death. But the actual participants might disagree with me. While I wait for them to see this post and sort out their problems, why not look in on what the WoW.com staff is playing this weekend? And, if you're feeling brave, join the debate and tell us what your favorite mount in the game is. %Gallery-91600%
