WOW designer kicks off Austin conference

sábado, 10 de mayo del 2008 a las 04:46

guardado en Wow Gold

"AUSTIN, Texas--The Austin Game Conference (AGC) is all about online gaming, and right now, online gaming is all about Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. So it's only fitting that this year's AGC, the fourth annual event and the first to span three days rather than two, would kick off with a keynote speech from World of Warcraft's lead designer, Rob Pardo. Before a ballroom packed with hundreds of attendees, Pardo detailed the Blizzard design process that birthed hits like Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft, and, of course, World of Warcraft. ""We have a lot of goofy mantras,"" Pardo said. ""Things like 'purity of purpose,' 'concentrated coolness,' obvious ones like 'easy to learn, difficult to master.' When you have a large studio and a lot of designers, it's kind of important that everyone understands your values and when you're developing that design culture, if you don't have these shared values, it's very hard for all the designers and developers to understand what you're trying to achieve."" The first Blizzard value is a donut, with the inner ring representing the core market for a game and the outer ring being the casual crowd. While Pardo explained that it's important to appeal to both casual and core markets, he noted that as the group of people playing a game grows, the casual market tends to grow much faster than the core segment. The healthy donut is achieved with decisions guided by a series of mantras, the first of which is ""easy to learn, difficult to master."" ""The first thing we always do is we design depth first and accessibility later,"" Pardo said. ""And I think this is kind of unintuitive... We try to come up with [answers to] what are the really cool things, the things that are going to attract players to this game and get them to play the game for two to three years.

Where's the depth coming from. And then we think about accessibility."" For World of Warcraft, there were four features Pardo said were key to giving the game depth. The team wanted to make the classes as distinct as possible; they then made the game's dungeons specifically to serve the core market and act as a bridge for more casual players to get further into the game. Other features that the team spent time tuning for added depth included player-versus-player action and more interesting raids and end games with encounters ""that are much more like something you might see in Zelda."" " "With World of Warcraft's subscriber base nearing 7 million, it's little wonder that its first expansion is generating no small amount of interest. However, that interest has turned to doubt, following recent reports that the game has only entered alpha testing. world of warcraft power leveling But while the game's developer and publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, would only say that the game was undergoing ""internal testing,"" it did today reiterate that its ""goal is to ship the expansion pack by the end of the year."" If the Burning Crusade does make it to stores by New Year's Eve, it may spark a new holiday tradition. Following reports in the European press, Blizzard confirmed to GameSpot that it is aiming to release new World of Warcraft add-ons annually. ""Our ideal scenario would be to release new expansions every year, and that's what we're aiming for,"" a rep said. wow powerleveling While confident, Blizzard was also cautious about an annual expansion scheme. ""Given the nature of game development cycles, we may not always be able to hit our target release goals,"" the rep continued. ""Regardless, our priority will always be on ensuring that our products meet our expectations and those of our players, and we won't release a product until we feel it's ready."" Blizzard's been working like crazy to fix the servers.

wow powerlevel They've been going at the servers about 20 at a time to fix them, as well as retrofitting them for the Burning Crusade expansion. And I can't wait for that expansion. I just recently started playing WoW and my girlfriend and I are hooked. All the annoying 10-15 year old run-ins aside (sorry to those who are 10-15 and don't act like idiots), it's a great game. wow gold My main problem was that I wanted to be a ""Blood"" Elf. With the BC expansion, I can do that, so I'm set The whole ""One Expansion a year"" thing might not be perfect, but it's a great idea. People would get bored of the game if they didn't expand on it. serveur wow The rise of the level cap to 70 will give everyone a chance to keep growing and all the additions will give us new things to do and see. " .

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WOW guild banned

por wowhunterzone

sábado, 10 de mayo del 2008 a las 04:43

guardado en Wow Gold

"The World of Warcraft guild Overrated has been permanently banned by Blizzard Entertainment after it was caught cheating in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Guild members used an exploit that essentially knocked down walls, according to postings on World of Warcraft-related forums. The guild had been playing the level of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, also known as AQ40. In it, the dungeon level map progresses in a circular manner from the first to last bosses. The mod effectively allowed the guild to bypass what it refers to as ""C'thun trash,"" bosses who dropped less lucrative items. Guild members could then move on to the final boss, C'thun, who drops more valuable goodies. Pantaloons, a member of the Overrated guild, commented on the WOW forums, ""Let me explain. We are the only US Horde guild that clears Naxx [the most challenging area of the game], been like that for a few weeks. People found that the pre-C'thun trash was so painful, that they decided to install some stupid thing that deletes walls or something, and you can just run there after Skeram [the first boss]. I know, we had it coming, blah blah whatever, we know we deserve it...I'm sure they'll try and get it rescinded because it's kind of a steep punishment with no recourse or whatever."" Blizzard Entertainment did not respond to requests from GameSpot for a comment. mm.. for all of u guys who are saying good for blizzard and saying good job those cheating sob's deserve it.. think about this.. what if u were permanently banned from ur favorite pc or console game. wow gold paypal would u just forget about it and move on.. NO! if u truly cared for it and the game was as addicting as WoW then you'd be morbid. i personally have experience i used to think hackers were dumbasses too.

gold in wow i was banned from vac servers on steam even though alls i had to do was buy a new copy of the game and make a new account. for the period of time i could only play on non vac secred servers.. i was itching to get to my nearest best buy to get the new copy of the game.. wow power leveling so lighten up,jesus.. atleast they said they were sorry and admitted they were wrong. if other hackers were banned theyd probebly find a way to send some virus to ur computer and laugh in your face. cheap world of warcraft gold this pantaloones guy was very ... how do u say it... i guess he was very nice. wow europe on admitting he was wrong and apologizing.. i think permanently banning someone from something as addicting as WoW is way too harsh.i hope blizzard lessens their punishment.. " "In Comedy Central's teaser commercials for the first of a new batch of South Park episodes, the series' four main characters--elementary school kids Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny--gaze slack-jawed at computer screens, morbidly obese and riddled with zits.

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WOW press conference "joke" gets real

por wowhunterzone

sábado, 10 de mayo del 2008 a las 04:41

guardado en Wow Gold

"It started out as a joke to make fun of companies that hold press conferences in virtual worlds like Second Life. Socialtext CEO and founder Ross Mayfield wrote on his blog that he would be conducting an in-game press conference in World of Warcraft. The conference's ground rules included points such as ""no ninjas,"" ""questions will only be taken from journalists in PvP mode,"" ""do not dance unless you are an orc,"" and ""if the spokesperson is not forthcoming, you may duel for information."" Mayfield commented, ""It was taken seriously enough that we are going to do it. This could be a cheap PR stunt around some good news from Socialtext, but it could also just be fun."" Socialtext is an ""enterprise wiki software publisher""--it hosts wikis (encyclopedia and collaboration tools editable by everyone) for businesses so that employees can use Web pages instead of e-mail to communicate with each other. The conference will take place on December 1, at 5 p.m. server time, in the Gurubashi Arena, on the Eitrigg Server. World of Warcraft recently announced a total of 7.5 million subscribers, and its virtual economy sometimes spills over into the real world--but this is the first time it has worked the other way around. A few days ago computer company Dell hosted an invite-only press event to announce that it intended to maintain an ongoing presence within Second Life--an island where users could buy a virtual (or real) PC. Second Life is a 3D ""virtual world"" inspired by the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, where users can create and personalise an avatar, buy a house and/or land, explore, and interact with other users. In October, the ""population"" of Second Life hit 1 million residents. Sun Microsystems also held a virtual press conference in Second Life in October to show off its Sun Pavilion and invite developers to try out code, share ideas, and receive training.

Philip Rosedale, founder and CEO of Linden Lab, Second Life's creators, briefly showed up naked at the beginning of the event when his avatar experienced a software glitch. PrintE-mailCommentTagFacebook" "It's becoming routine every three months or so--Vivendi announces its latest financial report and owes a lot of its earned cash to World of Warcraft. The French conglomerate reported a 0.3 percent increase in sales for the company's third quarter, shy of the 1.8 percent increase analysts expected. wow gold For the three-month period ended September 30, Vivendi pulled in 4.89 billion euros ($6.2 billion), down from an estimate of 4.96 billion euros ($6.2 billion). Once again, it wasn't the company's mobile phone or music group (which includes the world's largest music company, Universal Music Group) that shined brightest for Vivendi, but rather its games division. Led by the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, Vivendi Games' sales jumped 15 percent to 182 million euros ($232 million) from the same period the previous year, making it Vivendi's fastest growing sector--not bad for a PC game that is almost two years old. wow powerleveling Vivendi also singled out Scarface: The World Is Yours as a solid seller. Vivendi Games looks to add even more WOW-related revenue in early 2007, when the game's first expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, is released. they just put The Burning Crusade in the Fridge, in order to preserve next year Cash flow, and tell us : it's in order to preserve game esperience... I'm half french and studied Finance, cynicysm is something i practice regularly... wow or Here it shows how much Vivendi owes its Cash increases to one thing... The pyramide is missing 3 sides... Some people are dependant on Wow, not players but over 150 000 employees of Vivendi Universal... must send them to sanatorium .

" "Have you ever wanted to ask what the Twisting Nether was but didn't ask for fear of being pegged as a noob. Ever quest platinum The answers to potentially embarrassing and reputation-breaking questions like that will soon be easy to find, thanks to Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard, publisher of the Warcraft franchise, which includes the ever-popular World of Warcraft, is logging all the lore of the series into the Warcraft Encyclopedia. The online reference guide features definitions of things only hardened Warcraft vets would know, including the various histories between the series' many races, the heroes from the franchise, and the dictionaries featuring definitions of basic Darnassian and Thalassian phrases. wow europe The encyclopedia is a work-in-progress and includes information from all the Warcraft games and novels and from the pen-and-paper role-playing game. Blizzard hopes to update the tome several times each year.

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GDC '08: MMOG execs spar over genre's future

por wowhunterzone

sábado, 10 de mayo del 2008 a las 04:38

guardado en Wow Gold

"SAN FRANCISCO--Last year, a whole spate of new massively multiplayer online games hit the market, with some of the biggest including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Fury, Lord of the Rings Online, and Tabula Rasa. No easy feat, considering the tens of millions of dollars and the multiyear commitments necessary to pull off such projects. However, despite the variety of new entrants, none have come close in terms of popularity to even the shadow cast by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which itself received an expansion at the beginning of 2007. Not-so-massive massively multiplayer panel.So is the MMOG market healthy. That and other questions played front and center in a roundtable discussion titled ""Future of MMOs"" held on the fourth day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. While MMOGs have had a polarizing effect on many in the gaming industry, the session nonetheless drew a massive audience due to its pedigree of participants. Squaring off in the sometimes-contentious debate were Jack Emmert, founder of Cryptic Studios, which is currently at work on the recently announced Champions Online; Matt Miller, lead designer of NCsoft City of Heroes/Villains; Ray Muzyka, GM of BioWare, which is currently developing an unnamed MMOG that may or may not involve LucasArts' Star Wars license; Min Kim, director of game operations at microtransaction-oriented Nexon; and Rob Pardo, VP of game design at WOW proprietor Blizzard Entertainment. Pardo's WOW being the elephant in the room, the lead designer said it was interesting to hear from publishers, ""WOW has set the bar too high, so we don't even want to try."" From a marketing perspective, he feels this is great. However, as a player, he wants to see competition. He also notes that if a developer is going to do a big-budget MMOG, it can't merely look to compete with the amount of content WOW launched with.

Rather, a player sees the original WOW, as well as the Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and ""whatever expansion we do next."" As for whether the industry is healthy. ""Absolutely not,"" says Emmert, noting that Lord of the Rings Online is the only game to his knowledge that has launched post WOW and broken 100,000 users. Kim agrees, noting that if a developer is purely targeting WOW, ""the future is bleak."" Agreeing, Muzyka said that BioWare is approaching its first MMOG with both ambition and humility. He says his company doesn't assume it knows what it is doing in the online space, but as long as they learn from their mistakes, as well as make something brilliant, then they will find success " "Currently, the population of Earth is estimated to be around 6.7 billion people. wow powerleveling As of this week, roughly 0.1 percent of the sum of modern humanity plays World of Warcraft. Today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that more than 8 million people subscribe to the massive massively multiplayer online role-playing game, setting a new milestone for the title more than two years after its fall 2004 release. The tour of Blizzard HQ now includes a visit to its basement (pictured). As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players. po wow Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but US players pay $14.95 each month to play WOW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, which has been lowered to just $19.99. ""We're ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game,"" said Blizzard president and cofounder Mike Morhaime, presumably while being fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds atop a gigantic pile of cash.

gold für wow ""This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our players."" Though its original world is already popular, World of Warcraft's borders will soon grow, courtesy of next week's release of the Burning Crusade expansion pack. Like the original WOW, it is rated T for Teen. However, at $39.99 it will cost more than the original game, which is required to play the expansion. eve isk " "Shawn Fanning started a digital phenomenon when he built Napster, one of the original peer-to-peer file-sharing programs released on the Internet. Now Fanning is looking at another phenomenon, Blizzard Entertainment's massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, for his next project. BusinessWeek Online is reporting that Fanning is planning to introduce Rupture, ""a virtual social community for online gamers,"" sometime in the near future. des po wow The idea reportedly stemmed from Fanning's own troubles with communicating with other World of Warcraft players. The MySpace for Azeroth will pull data directly from WOW and publish stats and information on a personalized page. Gamers will also be able to instant message while playing, as well as track the progress of their guilds and organize playing time with their online buddies. Rupture will rely on ads for revenue and also focus on exchanging info on gamers' real lives, should they have one.