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World of Warcraft subs increase to 7.8 million
A successful BlizzCon and the announcement of upcoming expansion Warlords of Draenor seems to have been a positive thing for World of Warcraft; Activision-Blizzard is reporting that the game's subscriber numbers have received a slight bump from 7.6 million in November 2013 to 7.8 million through the fourth quarter of the year. Numbers for the MMO behemoth have been on the decline as of late, with the most notable dive coming in the form of a 1.3 million player exodus reported early in 2013. With the financial year now at an end, we can trace WoW's subscriber numbers through each of 2013's reported quarters: 8.3 million in the first, 7.7 million in the second, 7.6 million in the third, and 7.8 million in the fourth. World of Warcraft subs tend to ebb and flow in sync with the release of expansions, so we'll get a better hint of the strength of the game's staying power when Warlords of Draenor launches later this year.
It's a battle of the titans in this new Black Gold Online trailer
Snail Games has just unveiled a brand-new trailer for Black Gold Online, teasing a fight between an enormous goliath and equally large behemoth and showing off behind-the-scenes clips of how the goliath was designed. According to the video description, the goliath is a creation of the engineers of Steam, built specifically to counter the Erlandir-summoned behemoth. And by "counter" we mean "punch." Check out the teaser after the break. Snail describes Black Gold's universe as a "world where innovative Victorian steampunk clashes with traditional high fantasy." The game is set for launch sometime in 2014 with a closed alpha aimed at February.
Hearthstone open beta pushed into 2014
Despite Blizzard's hope of launching Hearthstone into open beta sometime this month, it appears as though bug-catching, card-tweaking, and fine-tuning have gotten the better of the team. The studio today announced that Hearthstone's open beta has been delayed to ensure the game is "ready for wider testing." According to Blizzard, Hearthstone's open beta is still "very close." Blizzard tempered the bad news with an announcement that it is expanding the closed beta substantially; everyone who opted in before December 16th, 2013, should have received an invite. If you haven't yet opted in, you have until January 7th, 2014, to sign up. No further card data wipes are planned as Hearthstone edges its way to launch.
Blizzard unveils Diablo III's Reaper of Souls' Westmarch
Westmarch, once spoken of only in whispers, is one of the new settings of Diablo III's upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion. The city was once beautiful and vibrant, but the events of the Diablo series have left it with an unsettling aura and a dwindling population. Blizzard Entertainment today offered an up-close look at Westmarch's design and implementation on the official Diablo III blog, showing off concept maps, points of interest, and some of the city's real-life location inspirations. Westmarch pulls elements from "the fog-laden cobblestone streets of London in the 1800s" and features tightly packed buildings, winding alleyways, and grisly visual cues as to the city's failed attempts at mounting a defense. The Survivor's Enclave is the one bright spot in this dismal world, a place where Westmarch's few living inhabitants can find rest and safety from the evils of the outside world. Reaper of Souls is due in 2014, or as Blizzard likes to call it, SoonTM.
WoW Archivist: Many memes, handle it
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? Last week, Archivist celebrated the Ulduar raid, including Thorim's famous IN THE MOUNTAINS speech -- one of Wrath's most memorable memes. In its eight years, World of Warcraft and its players have spawned dozens of memes. Today, Archivist remembers some of the best and most enduring. If you've ever wondered where some of these memes come from, read on! The earliest memes WoW memes began almost instantly after the game's release. One of the first was Mankrik's wife. For an early Horde quest in the Barrens, the orc Mankrik sent you to locate her. His directions were rather vague, so many players had trouble locating her. It didn't help that she wasn't an upright and alive NPC, but rather a dead body laying on the ground -- killed by marauding quilboars. Confused players asked where they could find her in the zone's chat. Many, many players. Because the massive zone spanned 15 levels, everyone leveling through it saw that same question asked over and over again. It got to the point where people would ask just to troll the chat channel. The quest is no longer in the game, but players can now visit her grave near Grol'dom Farm. Trolling Barrens chat became something of a hobby for early players. Many in the Horde didn't know about the other leveling zones across the ocean. Some who did ran up against the ongoing Tarren Mill/Southshore lagfest wars and took the first boat back to Kalimdor. The combination of a captive audience and a high saturation of new players made the Barrens the perfect zone to troll. In time, Barrens chat became its own meme, even inspiring T shirts.
GameStop earnings call adds to Guild Wars 2 release date speculation
Since players aren't tremendously happy with ArenaNet's answer of "when it's ready" every time the question of the Guild Wars 2 release date comes up, any hint of further clarification is something to be prized. As a game retailer, dates are the sort of thing that come up in GameStop's earnings calls. Covering the Q1 conference call released today, Gamespot has CFO Robert Lloyd stating that Guild Wars 2 has been bumped out of the current quarter, putting its release sometime after July. It's worth noting that as of this posting, GameStop's online listing still had the Guild Wars 2 release date as June 26th. As has been repeated countless times by ArenaNet devs, no information should be treated as official unless it's directly from them. Don't let that stop you from pulling out your favorite tinfoil hat and cooking up some speculations, though.
MechWarrior Online dev Q&A covers beta, grouping, and combat damage
MechWarrior Online's devs aren't quite ready to disclose specifics on the game's minimum specs or beta process, but news for both is coming "soon." These vague assurances were the anomaly in a recent community Q&A, during which Piranha Games President Russ Bullock and Creative Director Bryan Ekman spilled on all of the minutia that fans were dying to know. The duo said that they're "working very hard" to get MWO servers into every major region and that information about beta will be coming next week. They did confirm that there will be an open beta at some juncture, however. Other details disclosed included the fact that players can form groups of up to 12 'Mechs, that legs cannot be blown off (but can be immobilized), and that the launch matchmaking system will be very basic and won't take into account player skill or records.
Guild Wars: The winds just keep on a-changin'
ArenaNet has just announced that the third installment of Winds of Change, Miku's Tale, will be going live tomorrow! Part of Guild Wars Beyond, an effort to bridge the story between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, Winds of Change has been following the shifting states of affairs in Cantha. The rise of the Ministry of Purity, a new governmental organization, has had a central role in the story. First fighting with player characters against the blighted Afflicted then gangs of criminals, the Ministry slowly grew in influence and power. Guild Wars players aided the Ministry of Purity in its fight for justice until a chance encounter at a Ministry rally turned things sour. Since then, players have been rescuing captives, working with the Tengu, and generally making a nuisance of themselves as far as the Ministry is concerned. Now, with things in Cantha at the edge of chaos, we can once again pick up the story -- and dive into the final chapter of Winds of Change. If you'd like to see the new content in action, join us tomorrow, February 9th, at 7 p.m. EST for a special edition livestream. Our own Richie Procopio will be joined by ArenaNet staff as he streams the game live on our Twitch channel!
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.
Larger default backpack "very possible" in the future
Just about everyone playing World of Warcraft will be happy to hear this news: Eyonix says that it's 'very possible' that we'll be able to get our hands on a bigger backpack at some point in the future. Though the cynic in me says that 'very possible it'll happen eventually' is just a more positive way of saying 'we have no plans for that at this time,' I'll force myself to stay optimistic on this one.I've sort of grown out of whining about the little itty bitty default backpack simply because it's been there forever, but I'll be absolutely stoked if they ever let it scale or let you replace it with a bigger bag. Eyonix says that we should be proud of our trusty 16 slot, and I suppose that's sort of true. It's been with me through Molten Core and Ahn'Qiraj, through Naxxramas and the Black Temple and all of that jazz, but to be honest? It's getting kind of gross. It has developed a stench. I think it's been coated in slime and ichor a few too many times. If I could finally toss it out, that would be just great.
