Soley saw something strange at the airport in Denver: a console with PC games on it, including none other than World of Warcraft. Apparently there was a kiosk with a bunch of different games installed on it, and for a small fee, you could jump in and play any number of games, from Valve's FPSes (including Portal!) to our own big MMORPG.
The company doing this is called Zazoox -- they have a site that shows off all of their different consoles and offers them (for a price and a service charge) to vendors who can then put them up in public places. World of Warcraft isn't actually on their games list yet, so apparently it's just being tested in Denver and other places. Apparently, the price is 25 cents a minute, but as some of the commenters to Soley's post say, if you're entering your WoW password on what is basically a public computer and something goes wrong, it could cost you a lot more than that.
Of course, overseas in Asia, this kind of thing is common -- the vast majority of WoW players there play in public cafes and Internet houses, and in fact the pricing scheme of the game itself there is per hour, not per month like it is here. But for some reason, this kind of ubiquitous public gaming has never taken off in the West -- maybe Zazoox's consoles will get people playing out in public.
Tonight the world will be celebrating Earth Hour, with individuals, cities and businesses turning off and unplugging as many of their electronics and lights as possible. How can you get involved when you have a scheduled raid, or when this is the only time for you to play today?
You need not feel pressured to unplug everything. Turn out as many lights as you can throughout your home, unplug the electronics and appliances in rooms you are not using, and consult Well Fed Buff for the perfect lights-out snack you can prepare before 8:00 p.m.
This event is important, not because it will change the entire world, but because it will send a message. Not only will we have the opportunity to think about our impact, and learn about just how much power the world did save in that one dark hour, but businesses and governments will realize just how serious people are today about the environment.
Gamers should be a part of that message. Lately, we have been garnering a poor reputation for ourselves, and not because we might all turn into mass murderers from staring all day violent images.
I got a call from my mom on Friday night that she was having an emergency and needed me to call.It turns out the emergency was that she bought World of Warcraft and needed some instruction on how to play.Since I was at work, I told her to get started by reading up a bit on the WoW Rookie until I could spend a little more time with her.I was excited and somewhat terrified. I really hope she likes it and doesn't get too frustrated the first week.
My mom isn't what you would call a gamer.I'm not going to tell you how old she is, but she could tell you where she was when Kennedy was assassinated.She's a master Euchre player and a wiz at Scrabble.Her video gaming experience is limited to Bejeweled and online versions of card games.She used to love me watch play Tetris, but would respond like the controller was made of lava when I tried to hand it to her.I invited her to join Dungeons and Dragons sessions, but she always declined.
I moved 2,000 miles from my native Michigan for graduate school about five years ago.Since then my interactions with my mom have been limited to phone conversations and the occasional short visit.I'm really glad to get to share this time with her.
But really, some of the games sounded pretty awesome by the title alone. Around Blizzard these days, Nomad refers to a new human unit from the upcoming Starcraft II, but it seems at the presentation in question, it was on the list of canceled games accompanied by a picture of two giant Zeppelins. And we, of course, are all about the Zeppelins, so the game would have obviously been cool, if it had Zeppelins.
Finally, no list of canceled Blizzard games would be complete without a reference to Warcraft Adventures. I was always disappointed that this one got canceled, being a big fan of the old adventure games, and it looks like I even have allies at Blizzard on this point. But the WoW team seems to like to fit the game's story inwherever they can, so it wasn't all in vain, right?
The D.I.C.E. Summit's official site describes the event, currently taking place in Las Vegas, as a meeting of "the video game industry's most influential leaders," so of course you know Blizzard's there. Gamesindustry.biz's coverage of Mike Morhaime's presentation today doesn't reveal anything too earth-shattering about the company or the World of Warcraft. It's about the same thing we've heard from him in the past, but hey, if the presentation isn't broke, don't fix it, right?
It's still good to hear that Blizzard's on the right track, of course, and it's actually amazing that even with Mike Morhaime about to get his eighth boss, Blizzard's stayed pretty consistent on quality and dependability, as almost anyone who's had to switch bosses can tell you. But it looks like that, even with the Activision merger, we can expect the same tradition of long development cycles leading to quality games, which is, if familiar news, also comforting news.
Zg thinks, quite unreasonably, that 99% of players in the game are "keyboard turners"-- people who use the keyboard to turn their characters rather than holding down the right mouse button and moving the camera to turn. It's hardly anywhere near 99%, but given that WoW is a game that attracts casual players (a.k.a. people who aren't experienced videogame players), I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people in Azeroth than in, say, Counter-Strike, who use the keyboard to do most of their navigating.
Personally, I'm one of those that come from a CS background, and so I use the mouse for pretty much all movement whenever possible-- I'll often just hold down both mouse buttons if I need to run for a short distance (and anything longer gets the run lock key from me). I also think that circle strafing is pretty much the best game mechanic ever made, but I know that there are those who disagree with me-- back when I worked at Gamestop, one of our employees there just couldn't seem to wrap his head around the fact that he should turn and move at the same time, and as a result just got dominated in our Halo matches.
But habits are a powerful thing, and so keyboard turning is probably around to stay. I won't go so far as to say that fast-turning with a mouse is required to be a good player, but certainly that kind of reflex is required to be a really great player. So keyboard turners, pick up that mouse and start looking around-- you'll thank me later.
And the answer-- in my analysis-- is, as usual with most mergers: money. The fact is that Activision wants to be the biggest gaming company in the world. They want it all-- consoles, PC games, you name it-- and connecting with Blizzard helps them get a big part of that. World of Warcraft has turned Blizzard from a quality game designer into a videogame powerhouse, and Activision, in reaching for the top, has invited Blizzard on their team.
Blizzard will profit from it as well-- Activision knows how to get games published and marketed (just look at Guitar Hero III, which has done incredibly well for being a game that was not only not made by the original developer, but actually released up against a strong competitormade by the original developer). Blizzard knows how to make great games, and Activision knows how to release them, so both companies obviously think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Mr_elenganza has a great question over on the WoW LJ-- what headset do you use for voicechatting in WoW?
Me, I use two different audio inputs. On my Mac Powerbook, the built-in microphone actually works really well (and I hear from others who've used the new Macbooks that those work even better), so whenever I'm raiding with Teamspeak on, I'll have it on there, and just use that mic to talk.
But when I need something a little clearer, I use the cheaper Logitech headset-- there are more expensive gaming headsets out there, but the headset is really just for voice (I've also got a nice set of 5.1 speakers on my PC), so it works just fine for my purposes. To tell the truth, if I went for another headset, I'd probably try and get something Bluetooth (the fewer wires running around, the better), but I haven't shopped around too much for that-- anyone want to recommend one?
At this point, headsets are so cheap and so commonly used that "I don't have a mic" isn't really a valid excuse for not voicechatting any more (of course, it's always a good excuse if there are other reasons you don't want to speak). A nice USB headset will help you hear what's going on, and will make the experience better for people playing with you, too.
Dshpls tells the story of his friend's girlfriend's family over on the forums-- mother, father, sons and daughter all play World of Warcraft together. As a lot of players say on the forums, it's not really all that weird anymore-- WoW is showing up on commercials and even grandmothers play the game-- but it does still seem like a rare occurrence. My parents just aren't the videogame type, and my brother and sister were never that interested, either, so I always think of WoW as a more social activity than a family one.
But then again, whenever I abandon this bachelor life of "gaming blogger" and settle down in a house with a few more bedrooms than I need, I'll probably be inclined to do a little family gaming myself. As our own Robin Torres can tell you, gaming with family is just as fun as gaming to get away from family, and probably more fulfilling, too.
When you sit down to grind EOTS marks for the Season 1 Arena awards this weekend, will your family be sitting next to you yelling to get to the Blood Elf tower? Or are you glad they're on their own, playing Sudoku and golf, rather than the videogames you love so much?
comScore, a company earning its way in the world by compiling and analysing consumer data, tells us that there are currently 217 million people in the world playing games online. (Of course, this number only sounds impressive until you realize that there are over 6 billion people living in the world today.) But the numbers themselves seem to leave a lot to be desired -- over at PlayNoEvil they have a detailed analysis of the other things this data seems to have overlooked:
All of the companies comScore seems to be tracking are US-based. What about the large online gaming market in Asia?
Smaller game sites aren't considered. (Smaller than Yahoo, MSN, WildTangent, etc.)
Client-based games like World of Warcraft are excluded.
People playing in internet cafes (common in Asia) aren't counted.
So, from this data we can definitively determine that there are 217 million people in the world enjoying online gaming -- or maybe more. While it's interesting to see attempts at quantifying the online gaming market, I'd be interested in seeing some more inclusive estimates.
Anadjet of the Eonar realm posted a topic on the forums recently that got me thinking. The topic was on whether or not players found it weird to game in public. The story goes that down at the local pub she encountered several random strangers that had a love of WoW in common, and conversations ensued when she pulled out her laptop to log in to the game.
Yes, the game is popular, but it's not often that we run across players, and I wouldn't expect to do so in a bar. But it's an interesting question nonetheless. Would you ever just log in to WoW in public, irregardless of the weird looks others might give you? Or is the game more of a private world you prefer to dive in to at home? Is it just too plain geeky to do with others watching?
If you've been playing arena PvP every week and wondering just how your rating translates into points, wonder no more. Our friend Boubouille has created a nifty and easy little Arena Rating calculator-- just punch in your ratings (or your points, if you want to know what rating you'll need to get a certain number of points, and hit calculate and you're set.
The mathematical relationship is a little complicated (hence the reason for the calculator), but the rules of earning Arena Points aren't real hard to figure out-- every week, you earn points according to the highest team rating you've got. And a higher rating on 5v5 is worth more than 2v2, because 5v5 teams are harder to both fight and keep up with. This leads to a little bit of system gaming (and a lot of team jumping), but so far Blizzard has been fine with all of that-- they want 5v5 to become the most rewarding type of arena match, and they're willing to accept that you can often earn more playing 5v5 than 2v2, even if you lose.
Unfortunately, the actual Arena Rating system is a little more complicated-- it's based off of a chess rating system called ELO (named after the guy who made it, Arpad Elo), and the rating of your opponent actually determines how your rating changes as you play. Unfortunately, with no way to tell who your opponent is before you play a match, it's extremely hard to figure out your rating depending on how many matches you play (players are generally saying that the fewer matches you play, the better, as the higher your rating gets, the more difficult opponents you face). But of course the best way to come out with both a great rating and lots of points is to, y'know, actually be good.
People are always talking about WoW as the 800-pound gorilla of the current gaming world (or at least the MMO sub-world). I don't have much non-WoW MMO experience, so I don't know where WoW innovated or where it just took/refined standard genre tropes. I do know that WoW must be making a big splash in the economic side of the gaming industry, with its massive legions of subscribers. I remember reading a while back about some game developers saying WoW was bad for the business because a lot of people were just playing WoW and not buying other games, and there may be something to that; I, for one, would almost certainly have bought a Wii by now if it wasn't for WoW.
What have you observed WoW's influence to be, good or bad, artistic or economic, in the gaming industry? What further influences do you predict it will have?
In response to our summer vacation topic the other day, the Collegiate Times has posted a list of summer vacation 'do's & don'ts' (how quaint), and coming in at number five on that list:
5.) DON'T lock yourself in your room all day playing video games. It's only acceptable to spend eight consecutive hours in a virtual fairy-land if you are doing so with another human. Instead of closing your door and giving everyone the sneaking suspicion that you have formed an irrefutable bond with your right hand, knock on the next room down and make friends with dudeface so you can combine your warrior fighting noob powers. Don't worry, Zelda's Twilight Princess will be out in November, and you will have plenty of time to hide away in the darkest corner of your room to ride Chocobos and raise your HP to "Level 9 - Congratulations! You've graduated to the shameless rank of social outcast!" - insert retainer slurping noises here.
So, does that mean that as long as you're playing games with other people, then it's ok? Is it just the Zelda games they want you to stay away from? And if so, why do they want you to wait until the school year to start playing? Something's fishy here...
From today's issue of the Rocky Mountain Collegian, the school paper of Colorado State University, comes another article concerning the addictive properties of WoW and the effects it can have on one's schoolastic life. The article talks with several students who detail the reasons that they just can't break themselves away from the game screen, and touches on numerous other points that we've all heard before, but shouldn't expect to hear the last of any time soon.
One student does have a good quote illustrating why he no longer plays the game, however: "I like to live, breathe and eat, so I don't play that game anymore."
Soley saw something strange at the airport in Denver: a console with PC games on it, including none other than World of Warcraft. Apparently there was a kiosk with a bunch of different games installed on it, and for a small fee, you could jump in and play any number of games, from Valve's FPSes (including Portal!) to our own big MMORPG.
I got a call from my mom on Friday night that she was having an emergency and needed me to call.
Wired's games blog brings us more news
Zg thinks, quite unreasonably, that 
So now that 
Mr_elenganza has a great question over on the WoW LJ-- 
Dshpls tells the story of his friend's girlfriend's family over on the forums-- 
If you've been playing arena PvP every week and wondering just how your rating translates into points, wonder no more. Our friend Boubouille has created 
People are always talking about WoW as the 800-pound gorilla of the current gaming world (or at least the MMO sub-world). I don't have much non-WoW MMO experience, so I don't know where WoW innovated or where it just took/refined standard genre tropes. I do know that WoW must be making a big splash in the economic side of the gaming industry, with its massive legions of subscribers. I remember reading a while back about some game developers saying WoW was bad for the business because a lot of people were just playing WoW and not buying other games, and there may be something to that; I, for one, would almost certainly have bought a Wii by now if it wasn't for WoW.
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