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Maintenance done soon, Battle.net accounts having problems
In a pleasant change of pace, extended maintenance for a group of realms is currently not expected to be further extended today. The following realms, which are receiving hardware upgrades, are expected to be up and playable by 1 PM PDT, as originally promised: Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Dawnbringer, Exodar, Fizzcrank, Galakrond, Ghostlands, Grizzly Hills, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, Zangarmarsh All other realms should be up "in about the next hour," slightly later than the 11 AM PDT goal time. And now the bad news. There are also some issues with Battle.net account authentication, as is so often the case. Blizzard is aware of the Battle.net issues, and promises to provide further updates by noon PDT.Update: Further updates on the Battle.net issue will be released at 1:00 p.m. PDT. Most (if not all) Battle.net accounts are unable to log into the game.
BlizzCon Pro Tip: Setup your Battle.net account now
You want tickets to BlizzCon 2009?You want to enter the queue to purchase them tomorrow?You've heard the horror stories about how it all went haywire last year?Well, here's the pro tip of all pro tips, even better than Turpster's Tips: make your Battle.net account now and make sure your credit card / check card has enough money to cover the $125 cost of the ticket. While Blizzard has done a lot to make sure that the system will be smoother than last year, if you've already bought a plane ticket out to LA and have the hotels booked, etc., you'll want to be 100% sure you do everything you can do get these elusive tickets easily.The whole process takes just a couple of minutes, and you don't have to tie your World of Warcraft account to the Battle.net account unless you want to. They can remain entirely separate. Head over to the Battle.net account creation page and do this now!
Exporting guild calendars from the Armory
Reader Bob sent us a neat little tool a while back that will help you get your guild's calendar off of The Armory and on to another calendar program, like Google Calendar or iCal. This little script he built (which unfortunately will probably get beat up as soon as this post goes live, so give it a break if it's down) will give you a link for your guild's calendar, which you can then take over to Google Calendar (in the Other Calendars box, click Add, and then "Add by URL") or any other calendar service that accepts ICS data by URL, and put all of your guild's raids and events right into the calendar app that you actually use every day.However, there are a few hitches. Because the information you need lies on the Armory, you'll have to enter a Battle.net password into your calendar app to access that (which as Bob says, should be fine, but if you don't trust it, don't do it). Also, Blizzard is apparently not that happy with people accessing this data on the Armory either -- they've removed links to scripts like this off of the forums before. It's probably not a bannable offense (they probably just don't want tons of calendar queries into the Armory's servers), but if you try to connect this stuff together, you'll do it at your own risk.Still, it's a shame Blizzard isn't more open with this guild data -- it would be extremely useful to easily export guild information out to an .ICS file or even an RSS feed (for bank and join/quit info). We're not sure what all of their concerns are, but given that the info is already updated on the Armory, there has to be a way to more easily get it out of there and into more places where we can use it.
iPhone authenticator now in app store, for free
A few days ago, Blizzard semi-accidentally revealed that they were working on a cell-phone version of the authenticator (which works well along with the whole Battle.net account thing). Excitingly for many of us here, the iPhone was one of the supported platforms. Today, the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator has appeared in the app store, and I've got it installed on my iPhone. And it's free! You can find it in the app store on your phone by searching for "Blizzard" and scrolling down near the bottom. Or you can just click this iTunes link. Anyway, once you install it, it's a pretty simple matter to attach the authenticator serial number to your Battle.net account, and then use the generated codes to log in to WoW. It is also supposed to work on the iPod Touch, with the caveat that you need to be in wifi during the setup; thereafter, it can work without a network connection (on the Touch as well as the iPhone). [thanks, Ray]
Authenticators to be optional for the Forums and Armory
Many of the people who are actually allowed to surf the official World of Warcraft forums were a little unhappy with the change to Battle.net accounts simply due to the fact that it meant that if you had an authenticator attached to your account, you now had to use that authenticator to log onto the forums, which wasn't needed before. Even if you're allowed to surf at work, and even if the authenticator has a ring on it to so it can be attached to your keys, not everyone feels comfortable carrying that thing around all of the time. You lose it, you're out of luck for awhile.The other day, Bornakk announced some good news that I think a lot of those individuals may have missed: They've temporarily removed the requirement to use an authenticator for the forums and the Armory. In the future, they'll be making this feature optional. You'll be able to choose whether or not you want to use the authenticator on the forums. Why would you want to do that? Well, if your account uses an authenticator, it's going to keep keyloggers and hackers/scammers from stealing your account or characters, but if the authenticator isn't attached to your account on the forums, it can still be used for spamming keylogger links since all that's needed there is your password. If you have your authenticator turned off, it's going to do a whole load of nothing to stop that from happening.It's nice that it will be optional, but if you frequent the WoW forums and don't plan on using your authenticator there, keep in mind that you'll still want to be very careful about where you surf and what you click if forum access is something you enjoy having. In my experience, the forum mods are much less forgiving and not nearly as quick to respond as the in-game GM team.
Behind the scenes of WoW's bandwidth
We heard a little while back that it was AT&T who provide data center hosting to Blizzard and this gigantic game (and actually, we've had outage problems before due to maintenance on AT&T's end), but our friend Tamara Chuang of the Orange County Register went straight to the source, and spoke with the big bandwidth provider on just what it takes to keep the servers up. There's some good information in there, especially if you're interested in all of the motherboards and wires that run the World of Warcraft. MMOs are apparently AT&T's biggest gaming customers, and they run the wires for companies like Blizzard as well as Konami and Turbine. They originally helped run Battle.net, and when Blizzard wanted to expand with World of Warcraft, AT&T's gaming division expanded with them.Unfortunately, there's a lot of secrets here -- given that they're selling a service, AT&T doesn't speak too frankly about how much downtime they're really responsible for, and of course as a trade secret they can't give any numbers on how much bandwidth is passing through and where it's all going. But they will say that they've got latency levels down to milliseconds (in their testing, I'm sure -- lots of players would probably suggest it's a little worse, depending on which ISP you use), and that they offer services like Synaptic Hosting. During times of hard usage, Blizzard can ask (for a price, of course) to open the floodgates up and make sure there's enough bandwidth to go around.
Mac users having login issues this afternoon [UPDATED]
We've received a lot of reports of Mac users having problems with the login servers this afternoon, and the Tech Support forums certainly lend some weight to those reports. The thread isn't a 26+ page behemoth yet, but it's only getting started. We don't know how widespread the issue is quite yet, but it seems significant enough.Blizzard representatives are on the case, and while they haven't fixed the exact problem, they have found a workaround: This is only happening with the World of Warcraft specific login servers, and thus it's only happening to World of Warcraft specific logins. If you merge your World of Warcraft account into a Battle.net account, you will be able to log in.It's no fix, but if you're desperate enough to play and haven't yet merged your account over, now is a pretty good time to do it. Personally, I'm not sure why you wouldn't do it anyway, but that's just my preference talking. If this login issue gets worse before it gets better, we'll be sure to let you know.Update: This issue appears to be cleared up, but please let us (and Blizzard of course) know if that's not the case!
Authenticator app coming to iPhones, iPods, and other mobile devices
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Blizzard_developing_Mobile_Authenticator_app'; According to a new Battle.net support page, there will be a new Blizzard Authenticator app for your mobile phone which will generate a code just like the physical authenticator does. The authenticator app will act just like the physical authenticators currently available. The page is sparse on exactly what phones and mobile devices will be supported, but it does mention that it works with the iPod Touch and iPhone.According to the webpage, you only need a WiFi connection once to activate the authenticator application, and after that you're all set.This comes right after the transition of the EU World of Warcraft account management to the new Battle.net account management. The US transition is reportedly done, although there has been no official world from Blizzard yet (however all their webpages have already changed over).The app is not available for download yet via Blizzard or from the Apple store. But we'll let you know the second it goes up!You can read the full FAQ after the break, or check out the Blizzard Support article.
Battle.net accounts coming to the EU
Blizzard's various websites (official WoW site, the Armory, etc) have all been down for maintenance today, and we had no real idea why. Word is coming in from the EU that the switch to Battle.net accounts that we talked about previously is finally coming about. Portions of the official EU site are redirecting to this Battle.net login page.We knew this would happen eventually, especially since the name of the Authenticator changed on the PTR from being World of Warcraft specific to a more broad Battle.net name, but the fact that it's coming without formal notice is a bit surprising! If you're unfamiliar with what a Battle.net account actually is, it's more or less the same as your WoW account but instead of an account name, it uses your e-mail address and it spans all Blizzard games. Considering the Starcraft II beta is rumored to be starting quite soon, this is probably good timing for the switch.We have no idea if this switch is happening in the US yet, but it's probably a safe assumption that it will. Or if it hasn't, we'll be seeing it very soon. If we find out more, we'll be sure to let you know.Update: It does look like this is coming to the US soon as well.[Thanks to everyone for the tips, and Kumbol for the screenshot]
AT&T will continue Blizzard hosting
We haven't gotten much of a look at Blizzard's server architecture, but here's a tiny one: AT&T has announced in a press release that they're re-signing to a two year agreement to provide Blizzard with hosting for World of Warcraft and Battle.net. We'll get the joke out of the way first: that explains why Blizzard's sites go down so often! Ba-dump ching!But seriously, the press release says AT&T has been working with Blizzard on providing bandwidth and network monitoring for nine years already, and that they have multiple "Internet Data Centers" that provide global support of the network infrastructure that lets your character wander around Azeroth. AT&T isn't the only company Blizzard works with -- while their network provides the connections and bandwidth, the actual coding and the databases behind all of the action in WoW are another story, and Blizzard likely works with multiple big companies to make sure that all runs smoothly. AT&T provides the cables, but someone's got to help provide the servers and the code they're hooked up to.Still, despite the jokes about the downtime, it's quite a feat. We're still interested in hearing more about the mechanics behind the World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, lots of this information is probably a trade secret at this point -- even if no other MMOs are coming close to WoW's numbers, Blizzard has probably come up with a lot of techniques they don't exactly want known to the public. But a look inside one of these "IDCs" or an idea of just what machines they're using to run a realm of WoW would be intriguing.
Activision loses money, Blizzard to release one marquee game per year
Activision-Blizzard held a conference call for the press yesterday, and so there's all kinds of financial and release news floating around out there. The biggest news isn't necessarily Blizzard-related, but it does mean that our game's company is finally feeling the crunch a bit: Activision-Blizzard reported a loss of $72 million in the last quarter, and their outlook for the coming year fell short of analysts' expectations. Even though that sounds bad, it doesn't mean things are necessarily bad, though: Blizzard themselves added nearly a billion dollars to the total, so while A-B might not be doing so well, B is doing just fine.Blizzard CEO Paul Sams also announced during the call that the company is now aiming for "one 'frontline' title per year," though not necessarily World of Warcraft related. That likely means that we'll see the first Starcraft 2 this year -- our friends at Joystiq have a quick report on the beta appearing soon, as well as the Battle.net revamp we've been waiting for. And it also means that (unless Blizzard is really rolling on Diablo III, which I doubt, given its condition when we played it at last year's BlizzCon), that we'll be looking at mid/late 2010 for the release of the next WoW expansion.Besides the loss of the $72 million (it's always in the last place you look), things seem to be hopping at Blizzard and their parent company. Should be a pretty busy 2009 for them.
Is Bobby Kotick bad for Blizzard?
Yesterday, when we wrote about Blizzard's mistakes in patch 3.0.8, I made very sure to stay away from any mention of Activision. Call me naive, but I still don't think the Activision-Blizzard relationship has yet affected how Blizzard conducts business -- Blizzard's mistake of releasing the patch before it was ready was, in my mind, all their own. But not everyone feels that way (just read the comments on yesterday's post), and Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica will go a step further: he's calling Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick out for caring more about how much money his games make rather than how good they are.We've talked about Kotick here before, and we've got him saying both that Activision will leave Blizzard alone and that they'll be seeking additional revenues where they can get them. But Kuchera isn't so balanced -- he's ready to pin Blizzard's decisions, including the idea to cut Starcraft II up into three different games, and the pending monetization of Battle.net on Activision's influence. And the last nail in the coffin is Kotick's recent profile in Forbes, which apparently had the writer calling Rock Band a "knock-off" of Activision's Guitar Hero (even though history says otherwise, since Harmonix, without Activision, created both franchises).But that gets a little too far into non-Blizzard territory for us. Kuchera finishes by saying that there's two forces at work in Azeroth: "the loyalty of [WoW's] players" and "Kotick's cash lust." And he questions what will happen when the two finally face off. Which is basically what we've been saying for a long time. But the question so far is whether that's happened or not. Have Activision and Kotick pushed Blizzard to make the Starcraft II and Battle.net decisions, or is Blizzard making all of these choices on their own?
WoW Insider's predictions for 2009
Another year has come and gone, and we're on the verge of WoW's fifth year of existence. So it's time once again to look into the crystal ball, and pull out some predictions. Some of these are surefire (we're definitely going to hear more about the content patches for Wrath this year), some are tossups depending on who you ask (will we see another expansion in the works?), and some are just random guesses. But we're guaranteed one thing: 2009 is going to be a wild year, so if you want our very first insight on what might happen, here you go.These are compiled from the WoW Insider staff -- we differed in a few places, and where we did, I've pointed out who thought what. Keep in mind that no one can predict the future, of course, so these are predictions, and that's all. By now we should all know that Blizzard will do all they can to keep us guessing. And feel free to put your own predictions (or just respond to ours in the comments below. Happy New Year -- here's to a great 2009!Update: Also be sure to check out Big Download's PC predictions for 2009 -- they've got something to say about Blizzard's next expansion, too.
Blizzard makes deal with Massive for Battle.net ads
The AP is reporting that Microsoft's game advertising division (called Massive, Inc., not to be confused with Massively), has signed a deal with Blizzard to offer advertising on their upcoming Battle.net revamp, presumably to premiere with Starcraft II. This is apparently out-of-game advertising, i.e. the ads you'll see upon login to the service, not necessarily on in-game billboards or other nonsense like that. Battle.net is Blizzard's online service -- they've used it since way back in the Diablo days, and they've always had ads for their own products in it. But now they've contracted with this company Massive, Inc. to put other ads in there, and since they've been planning for a revamp for a while, you can probably expect to see the ads in right away when the new service launches.How will this affect us as WoW players? It might not -- Blizzard may leave WoW on its own launcher, rather than having you go through a Battle.net launcher to sign in. On the other hand, WoW is clearly Blizzard's biggest online game, and we already know that Blizzard plans to include some WoW features (achievements, accounts) in the Battle.net revamp, so it could be that they're going to unify everything under one launcher (WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III), in which case you'd see these ads when you sign in as well.Which makes us wonder why exactly we'd be paying $15 a month to see more ads on login, but don't panic yet -- we'll cross that bridge when we actually know it exists (for now, Blizzard hasn't announced any official plans to change the way WoW works with Battle.net, other than the fact that one account will work across all games). We'll keep an eye out for any other new Battle.net news -- there's definitely something big in the works.
BlizzCon 2008: Rob Pardo talks Battle.Net monetizing
Not everyone was thrilled with the weekend news that Blizzard is looking to monetize Battle.Net in some way. So we made that one of the first questions we asked Blizzard VP Rob Pardo. The good news is, they're not going to make Diablo III subscription based. Find out everyone he told us after the break.
BlizzCon 2008: Diablo III gameplay panel
Blizzard's Jay Wilson and Wyatt Cheng took the stage at BlizzCon for a second time yesterday to helm the Diablo III Gameplay panel, which gave us a few more details about the eagerly awaited third part in Blizzard's mouse-button mashing trilogy. Check out the highlights after the break, which include updates on some of the creatures you'll encounter, and how they're taking steps to mix up the gameplay by inserting "random adventures."
Blizzard's Wilson: Some Battle.net features to be 'monetized'
Speaking at yesterday's Diablo III Gameplay panel, Blizzard's Jay Wilson was asked one of the questions that's been hiding in the back of all of our brains, "Is Battle.Net going to remain free?"His response probably wasn't what you'd want to hear. "We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features," said Wilson. "We kind of have to." He went on to say that they do recognize that everyone loves having it as a free service, and that they don't have a strong desire to make a subscription-based game. What does that mean for our beloved free online gaming service? We're hoping to find out when we talk to Blizzard bigwig Rob Pardo later this afternoon.
Blizzard reveals new Battle.net features
DIII.net has a great writeup of everything Blizzard has said so far about the new Battle.net features, and while most of the information applies more to Diablo III and Starcraft II, there's some good tidbits in there for WoW fans as well. Battle.net is Blizzard's oldest online service -- it predates WoW by a few years and was notably used to play Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 and Starcraft online. It's making a return with a revamp for the release of Starcraft II, and in addition to the previously mentioned ability Battle.net will give playes to track achievements across all Blizzard games, the system will have a much more social feel than the previous incarnation of the service.Player accounts, avatars, icons, and friend lists are all planned, and odds are that services like the Armory and even the WoW sign in may be tied to your Battle.net account in some way. Tournaments and rankings will be included (though it remains to be seen how this might be implemented in World of Warcraft), and Battle.net will even offer players the ability to save and share replays of Starcraft II games, and other e-sport-like features.That last feature would be a perfect fit for WoW's Arenas, of course, but as much as players would like to be able to spectate Arena matches, odds are that there would have to be a lot of behind-the-scenes coding done on Blizzard's side. Starcraft is being built from the ground up to record matches, of course, but WoW's Arena system doesn't have that ability built in, and putting it in might be more work than Blizzard wants to do on that one area of the game. No word yet on when we might get the new Battle.net (odds are it'll come out right around the Starcraft II release, whenever that is), but from the look of it, Blizzard has big plans to expand the social networks they've built into World of Warcraft towards all of their properties.
WWI08: Diablo 3 design fundamentals
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Diablo_3_design_fundamentals'; At the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris, Blizzard designers took to the stage to talk about the design goals and fundamentals behind their upcoming title, Diablo III. Jay Wilson, lead designer on the title, presented a rundown of the design philosophy behind the game, covering its origins, the game's approchability, and the design team's "better gameplay, less carpal tunnel" approach.%Gallery-26348%
Joystiq chats with Jay Wilson on Diablo 3
click to embiggen var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Diablo_3_s_Jay_Wilson_talks_Deckard_Cain_cows_co_op'; The buzz here at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles is all about Diablo 3. When will we have a playable demo? When can we expect a release? Blizzard, of course, isn't willing to commit to a date other than their standard "when it's done" answer: What classes are going to be available? Blizzard's answer: we're not ready to talk about that. Will there be a cow level? Blizzard's answer... well, more on that later. Joystiq had a chance to catch up with Diablo 3's lead designer Jay Wilson (whom you may know from his work on a little game called Dawn of War) and pick his brain about how he got on the Diablo 3 project, what's in store for Battle.net, and the secret cow level.%Gallery-26348%
