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Burning Crusade Coming to China
In some news that doesn't quite fit in with the recent rumors of discontentment between Blizzard & Chinese publisher The9, MMORPG Blog reports today that Blizzard & The9 are now in talks to release the first WoW expansion on Chinese shores in early 2007.Recent rumors have Blizzard being unhappy with their partnership with The9 & there has been buzz of them searching for a new Chinese publisher. Hopefully, a deal can be worked out somewhere that will allow Chinese players access to all the content of the upcoming new expansion.
WoW CD Cover Contest
For all you wanna-be Storm Thorgeson's out there (a free no-prize to whoever out there gets my obscure reference first), Blizzard & Emusic are holding a WoW CD Cover Contest. Participants are to create a WoW-themed cover for a music CD; the winners of the contest will recieve a SanDisk MP3 player & 120 Emusic downloads. The full details of the contest can be read here.I really hope we get some creative, WoW-ified takeoffs on some famous album covers. A band of Undead crossing Abbey Road? A bunch of Orcs in KISS makeup? I've already got my entry in; it's an exact replica of the cover to Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove....
Burning Crusade Bestiary Updated
The official site for the upcoming WoW expansion pack The Burning Crusade has been updated with a look at two new creatures you'll be facing in the Outland.The Broken are apparently a corrupted race of Shamanic creatures, while the Rock Flayers are a new supergroup featuring former members of Foghat. Or something like that...check it out for yourself on the official bestiary page.
WoW Moviewatch: Sparky the WoW Dog
Dogs playing WoW? What next, we give 'em the right to vote? Let 'em drive cars? Lead guilds? Go on Scholo runs? What's this world coming too?
Shouldn't they be called Noblegarden Bunnies?
Well, the latest holiday event from Blizzard proved to be considerably less...eventful than the rest. In fact, aside from a few scattered eggs about Ellwyn Forest, I didn't even really notice an even going on at all.Then again, I wasn't lucky enough to find one of these little guys...a real live Easter Bunny! Ok, it's not real or live, but it's still pretty cool. But still, my question stands...why aren't they called Noblegarden Bunnies?
WoW Moviewatch: Gamers - Profiles in WoW
Gamerfilms.com has put a preview online of their new documentary Gamers: Profiles in WoW. From the looks of it, it seems the film is made up of interviews with various gamers at Blizzcon. Could be interesting, as long it's not just a long series of talking heads. A series about the Talking Heads would be cool, though...
WoW Moviewatch: WoW Addicts
Ever seen that show Intevention, where they stick a bunch of cameras in someone's face & confront them with all the ways they're screwing up? This is kind of like that, only without all the care & professionalism. Still, I think they guy seems genuinely concerned about his friend...or else he's just way bored of watching him play WoW all day.
Info on New ATI Drivers & WoW
For all you Radeon card users out there, it seems that the latest version of ATI's drivers, the just-released Catalyst 6.4, contain an issue that may affect WoW players. From the official notes:"World of Warcraft: Enabling CrossFire may intermittently result in the character appearing off center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-22017"So, for god's sake, people...turn off Crossfire - whatever it is - and keep yourself centered. The new drivers can be downloaded from ATI's site here.
Confessions of a Middle School Cheater
In yet another sign of the decaying morals of our youth, today's Salt Lake Tribune has an article on 'cheating' in MMO's that contains some shamefully unremorseful confessions by some local youths of their nefarious gold-buying & pay-per-level activities. Where are these kids getting the cash to buy hundreds of dollars worth of powerleveling services, anyway? At that age I was lucky to get 35 cents to buy a comic book (yes, they were 35 cents...and I was still pissed about the price hike from 25).I love how these kids absolve themselves of guilt with statements like "Yeah, it was cheating...but I got a whole bunch of weapons". I'm pretty sure Lex Luthor said that once...
Blizzard Suspends Thousands of Accounts
Gold farmers beware: Blizzard has been cracking down hard on TOS violations since the 1.10 patch, and according to the official website, they have cancelled over 5,000 accounts & suspended another 10,000 for using third-party programs & other cheats in order to secure gold or items in the game.I, for one, applaud Blizzard's stance & tenacity on this subject...but I also think they're fully aware that those 15,000 or so people will just be plunking down another $50 for the game again soon, so it's win/win for the boys in blue. I still like the crucifixion idea, myself...
WoW Moviewatch: WoW Clan Meeting
Ever seen that movie Kung Pow, where the guy took an old Karate movie & re-dubbed it with funny dialogue while inserting himself into the feature? Actually, Woody Allen did it first years before, and they're both funnier than this...but this is still pretty good. Thanks to reader DaFox for the tip!
The Allman Brothers in Azeroth!
In what might just be the single coolest news story I've heard all week, an interview over at Jambands.com with none other than Butch Trucks, drummer for the legendary Allman Brothers Band, has the music legend revealing that he has a level-60 Paladin in WoW, and he even reveals his character name & server (which he probably felt safe doing in an interview on a music site, but for the sake of his gameplaying peace, I won't repeat here).Trucks (whom I actually met at a concert in Nashville years ago & who did not at all strike me as the type of guy to enjoy a game of Pac-Man, much less WoW) claims that gaming is the new way that he relaxes & whittles away his off-time while on tour. In other words, WoW is the new rockstar addiction of choice...at least on the Allman's tour bus.And is it just me, or do the Furbolgs kind of look like Gregg Allman circa '75 or so?
WoW on the Mac Safe From Windows
For all you Mac-based WoW players out there who have feared that the release of Apple's new Boot Camp software (allowing Mac users to run both Win XP & OS-X) might singal the end of native gaming development for the Mac, Blizzard has announced that the Mac version of WoW will indeed continue to recieve native support, so anyone worried about having to eventually switch to a Boot-Camped Windows version can rest easy.Apple claims the Windows version of WoW should be playable with Boot Camp, but as the Boot Camp software is still in beta, they will not offer support for running in this environment. A story in today's Macworld has more on the issue.I still wanna know: how the heck do you play on a Mac without a second mouse button?
WoW Limited Edition Bronze Figures
Fantasy Flight Games, makers of the WoW series of board games, have commissionas a new line of bronze miniature figures, for all you collectors & tabletop gaming lovers. Apparently they make the perfect size pieces for playing the WoW board games, but if you're like me, you'll have your little green army men fighting off the orcs .while defending the kitchen from the Horde. Too bad you can't paint these up all cool like...
WoW Moviewatch: Azerothian World News
Now this is what I call fair & balanced. You know how, when people sometimes blame the dumbing-down of society on the sensationalism of the modern news media ,apologists always say something like: "well, people have been doing stupid things for thousands of years, and what sort of media were they exposed to?" Well, finally, here is the answer to that question...
More Rumblings About the Weather
Well, I still haven't seen one single snowflake. not a raindrop...nothing. I've been running around Ellwyn Forest & Stranglethorn Vale all week, and it's been dry as a bone the entire time. And I even bought a nice, new umbrella for the occasion...I guess there really are weather effects in there somewhere now, though, because MTV.com has a lengthy article on the new weather system, with some interesting bits of behind-the-scenes trivia about it from the devs. Five years in the making? Great, but can I just see it for five seconds, please?
Gold Farmers Sending Out Press Releases?
As you might imagine, part of my job (aside from crime-fighting) involves poring through the latest WoW-related news items on the web & deciding which are worth pointing out. Sometimes there are some questionable items out there, but today I came across a story on PRWEB, apparently out of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Trailer Park Boys rule!), that is essentially nothing more than a big PR release for a gold farming/powerleveling site, no doubt trying to further bleed our beloved virtual economy dry. I won't mention the actual site in question, as I don't want them to recieve any traffic thanks to us, but I do think that this is A: a pretty ballsy move by the company in question (although they claim not to sell gold or powerleveling, only to rate other sites that do), and B: a pretty telling comment on the state of the virtual goods market; if these businesses are making enough money to have their own community of peer-reviewed sites, then it's obviously getting to be a bigger issue than anybody intended...most of all Blizzard.
Login Server Down for Emergency Maintenance
I knew I should have just gone AFK when I went to get something to eat. Because, sure enough, as soon as I come back & try to log on, I get the good ol' "unable to connect" message.There is a message from Blizzard on the login screen that states 'We will be performing emergency maintenance on our login server this evening which may result in an inability to log in to the game', along with a bunch of other stuff that doesn't make me feel any better. Apparently, the maintenance is extended until 11PM PST. And there's not a darn thing on TV....*UPDATE* The message has been changed to read 1:00 PDT, as of a few minutes ago. Totally weak...*UPDATE* Make that 4:00 PDT. Yippee...
Win a Free Year of WoW
That's right...the guys over at MMO Portal are giving away a whole year's subscription to WoW for free. And the best part is, it's not even a real contest. I mean, it is a real contest, but you don't have to do much of anything to win it; just go to their site, sign up for their forums, and make a post...the winner will be chosen at random on April 15th at 6 P.M. CST. The full details of the contest can be read here. You know, it just occurred to me that I should have gone & entered about 500 times before I posted this announcement, but now you guys get to reap the benefits of my honesty; go win that sucker!
New Armor Sets Revealed
Blizzard has updated the official site with a page for the new Tier 1 & Tier 2 Raid Armor sets, so all of you can put down your Twinkies & go drool over them for a half-hour, or however long it takes you. Since I know this is probably the only time I will ever get a good up-close look at these armor sets, I might just take a little longer.As to whether they're any good or not? Well, they're better than what I have....
