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Iran blocks Guild Wars, World of Warcraft
Reports are coming in that Iran is moving to block access to several MMOs, including World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. This comes following a conference by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance earlier this month. At the conference, the Islamic Revolution Game Designers Community was formed and decided to ban games that promote superstition, mythology, violence, and revealing clothing. Following the decision, the government started cracking down on various services and MMOs, such as Battle.net's library and ArenaNet's Guild Wars series. Other games targeted include RuneScape, Second Life, Dofus, Evony, and Entropia Universe. It's unclear to what extent the government is attempting to enforce these bans, and Iranian players are looking into workaround solutions to access their MMOs. It's interesting to note that Blizzard does not authorize downloads of its products or services in Iran.
Retribution paladin buff and other hotfixes incoming tonight
A number of hotfixes have been (or will be) applied to live realms today. One is a particularly noteworthy PVE retribution paladin fix intended to bring ret DPS up to match the competition in the Firelands, as paladin DPS has fallen a bit behind in this raid tier. Paladins will be receiving a +40% damage boost to Censure, the stacking DOT associated with Seal of Truth. The other hotfixes are aimed at quest-related bugs that may have been interfering with players' solo progression. The explanation for the retribution buff and the details of these quest hotfixes can both be found after the break below.
The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 4.0.6 for retribution
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. This week, Justicar Alex Ziebart heralds retribution's triumphant return. Questions? Comments? Feel free to email the author. Patch 4.0.6 is right around the corner. Isn't it about time we discuss what this means to the retribution paladin? You've all waited for this long enough, so let's skip the pleasantries and get right down to it. We're going to go through the paladin patch notes relevant to retribution paladins one by one. Do note that we are not covering all of the paladin patch notes, such as the mana cost changes to heals or those that impact holy and protection talents. While some of those things may technically impact retribution, we would all much rather talk about issues very specifically related to hitting things with a righteous vengeance until they die. Let's dig in.
Blizzard legal censures Shakes and Fidget
First the legal crackdown on fan-made iPhone apps, and now this: German-based webcomic Shakes and Fidget, a longtime sight in our Sunday Morning Funnies column, has apparently been smacked with a cease-and-desist by Blizzard. Our German isn't that great (and we've reached out to the comic's creators for further comment), but a translation of this forum page tells us that Activision-Blizzard's legal department suggested to them that there was enough similarity between the official game and the unofficial comic to cause a problem, and while they believe that they're covered under parody laws, they decided to take the "offending" comics offline anyway, and are apparently currently working on editing them so that they can be put back up without any issues.Obviously, since the comics are offline, we have no idea what material Blizzard objected to -- you could argue that depictions of certain gear created by Blizzard artists in the game or specific names are under trademark and thus could be protected under copyright law. But even then, Shakes and Fidget is one of many, many fan-made webcomics to obviously depict World of Warcraft and Blizzard-designed items specific to the game, and we haven't yet heard of any other webcomics that have been approached in this way.Still, as they might say in Germany, wir riechen eine ratte. Without knowing the exact nature of the comics that Blizzard had an issue with, this seems like a complete overreach on their part, especially considering that it's some of their biggest fans who are making these comics, and that many artists have portrayed many videogames in webcomics without anyone confusing the issue of whether they were official or not. We'll keep an eye out for more information (and we've also contacted Blizzard for comment) -- if you know of any other webcomics or fan artists who've been approached by Blizzard in this way, definitely let us know.Thanks, Henry!
