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Forum post of the day: Thank you

It seems like far too often we take the contributions of our fellow players for granted. Whether that happens when moments are tense or we forget that the other four people in our instance (or 24 people in our raid) are real folks, Bellwether of Dark iron set out to change that on the official forums today. She posted a well considered list of the roles that everyone should be thanked for in the game, just for doing their jobs. Here are some of her comments:

To Warriors:

  • Thank you for standing in front of me and letting things hit you.
  • Thank you for shouldering the massive repair bills that come with your job.
  • Thank you for preventing my death.

To Shamans:

  • Thank you for every single totem.
  • Thank you for Brain Heals.
  • Thank you for Ankh and saving us from having to run back

Continue reading Forum post of the day: Thank you

Blizzard says "WTB Fiction Writers"

We like to keep you updated on the opportunities to make some money off of all that WoW experience you have, so when we saw an announcement on the Blizzard job postings site that they're looking for fiction writers, we had to let you know. Not too often do people get a chance to write for their favorite game making company. The announcement says that if you get this job, you'll be working with their intellectual property (read: writing cool stories about all your favorite Blizzard characters), do lots of creative writing, and work on story development.

And what sets this announcement apart are two little gems from the "Pluses" category of the announcement: "Experience creating and running pen and paper RPG campaigns and/or live-action RPGs" and "Experience in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games, especially World of Warcraft."

So get out your 10 sided die and roll a 9 or above to work for Blizzard. Well, that and a bit of those uber-writing skillz. And who knows? Maybe one day you'll be writing a story about the Rise of the Lich King.

Good luck!

Playing virtual games in the workplace

We've heard before about how different activities in World of Warcraft can actually help you be better at your job, but now the BBC has posted an article examining how game mechanics from games like WoW can actually help your company help you work better. According to the ESRB, the average gamer isn't a teen after school any more-- he's 33 and has been gaming for 10 years. And because so many more professionals nowadays know the basics of gaming, employers are starting to apply those rules to the workplace to make everyone more productive.

One mechanic used is a form of "virtual currency" in terms of emails and meeting time-- send an email or hold a 15 minute meeting, and it costs you a token, while tokens can be earned in all kinds of ways. Not only does it keep employees on task, but it adds an extra layer of strategy and thought to the normal workday. Another game mechanic used by employers, says the BBC, is the idea of guilds and leveling rewards. "Guilds" in the workplace are tracked along a point system, and the best guilds get the best projects and rewards.

Very interesting stuff. While it sounds like good news for employers, I'm not sure how successful ideas like this would actually be among non-gamer employees-- at some point, how good you are at your job would be determined not by your industry ability, but by your game-playing ability, and that doesn't seem like a good outcome. But if employers find employees are willing to use these mechanics to make themselves more productive, everyone could benefit.

Thanks, Lienn!

Get a job...with Blizzard

Many of us who play online games often have a faraway dream of somehow working in the industry. Productivity gurus constantly tell us we need to do what we love if we're going to have real job satisfaction. It's one of the reasons I applied to work at WoW Insider, to combine my passion for writing and my obsession with online games.

Now you can check out the reality on Blizzard's official job listing site. You might just find something that justifies those 3:00 am raid wipes.

First up is a call for a Mobile Producer. A few months back, we posted this mock up of WoW on an IPhone. It was derided as unmanageable, but I think Blizzard disagrees. And who's going to argue with their success? As well as this report I found predicting the mobile game industry will be worth $11.2 billion by 2010.

But let's move on to some juicy Starcraft 2 job openings.

Continue reading Get a job...with Blizzard

Blizz posts job openings for mobile developers



Apparently Blizzard is looking for a few good people to work on unspecified projects for mobile platforms. Might this have something to do with a mobile WoW-related app? Of course, it could also be something completely unrelated. Still, pretty much ever since the iPhone was announced, there's been speculation about a possible "WoW Lite" for it that would let you check the AH, maybe chat with your guildies, and so forth. I know I'd certainly be a bit more tempted to grab an iPhone if I knew it was going to have some WoW capabilities. On the other hand, this could easily oppose my girlfriend to the device...

I think all I'd want in a WoW Lite client would be AH, chat, tradeskills, and maybe a talent calculator. After all, I still don't think it'd be possible to do much "real" gameplay on a small screen with no mouse/keyboard, even if the platform could handle it (which I doubt). What would you guys like to see WoW Lite include, if such a thing every got made? Oh, by the way, the image above is a quick Photoshop I did when the "WoW on iPhone" rumor first came out, not some sort of secret spy photo. The job postings are copied after the cut; see if you can make anything of them.

Continue reading Blizz posts job openings for mobile developers

Blue Notes: Shaman dispel poison and a web designer opening

A long-standing bug regarding Shaman having difficulty curing Rogue poisons will finally be squashed, though not until 2.1.0. From Ommra:

Ok, so I had the wrong information on when this bug was fixed. Apparently it didn't get fixed in the last patch (as you noticed), but will get fixed in 2.1.0 instead.

The change will be that the difficulty of dispelling the rogue's poison is based on the level of the player instead of the level of the
weapon the poison is applied to.

That makes sense, but I have trouble seeing how weapon level is ever going to be higher than player level, making this almost look like a nerf on the face of things. I'm sure it's not, though -- anyone want to explain?

In other news, perhaps Blizz took my jab at their web design on Sunday a little too seriously -- they're now on the lookout for a new web designer:

Blizzard Entertainment has an immediate opening for a Web Designer. The ideal candidate is well versed in HTML, JavaScript, and Photoshop and experienced in all manner of web-design elements, such as the design and layout of buttons, links, menus, and text. The Web Designer's primary duties will be to help design and implement the HTML pages for our growing websites. A lot of focus will be spent on supporting existing and future Blizzard titles. The Web Designer will also be responsible for daily web updates and maintenance of existing Blizzard sites. The ideal candidate will also have a strong working knowledge of Blizzard games. For more information on this position, please view the job description at: http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/web-designer.shtml

Blizzard to Venture Further into Console World?

Even though we've heard Blizzard announce time & again that there will be no World of Warcraft for the XBox 360 or any other consoles, a new job listing on Blizzard's website for a Senior Producer position, with one of the requirements listed as having "a proven track record in producing high-quality console games", has some gamers hopeful again that WoW may indeed surface on one of their favorite consoles.

The ad also specifies that the idea candidate must have "recently shipped at least one AAA game in a producer role for one of these console platforms: Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, or GameCube.", so apparently they're looking to cast a wide net, whatever their plans might be.

Personally, I'm not much of a console gamer, but I still can't imagine any way WoW could truly ever work on a console, at least without the addition of a mouse & keyboard; there's simply too much typing to do. Perhaps there's a way to accomplish this that I don't know about, but I just can't see one being able to have the true WoW experience in a console setting. Then again, what do I know?


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