Issue 92: Sorry for the lengthy delay; between work, the website becoming compromised and various other IRL stuff I haven’t been able to post a recent MMO Times. The hidden benefit though is that now that Blizzcon is over you know there should be plenty to talk about *cough*garrisons*cough*. MMO-Champion is probably going to get a lot of love in this issue because they seem to have the best overview of all that came out of Blizzcon this year. Therefore, if you are curious about what is new with World of Warcraft then I would recommend reading the headlines/posts in this issue from MMO-Champion.
I didn’t just find articles about what Blizzard announced and revealed at Blizzcon so don’t go anywhere. There are plenty of other things happening to read about. In fact if you stick around you will see that a new event will be starting for Final Fantasy XIV players as well as the next iteration for Marvel Heroes (which provides some godly, and demi-godly, additions). Plus Trion teases players with some recent domain registration activity. Read on and game on, friends.
Blizzcon 2013 is this weekend (if you didn’t know). I didn’t get a virtual ticket this year, we have to save some money but the opening ceremonies are free to watch. If you watched it then you might not find anything in this post that you didn’t already know. It has been two years since the last BlizzCon so I know everyone is pretty excited about what they are announcing (even if you’re not playing WoW anymore).
Heroes of the Storm – The video introducing Dustin Browser was pretty cool. All the different heroes fighting each other. They showed some content of Heroes of the Storm. It pretty much looks like League of Legends with all the Blizzard heroes. Based on the glimpses of the videos you can play as Arthas (as the Lich King), Carrigan, Diablo, etc. I’m not much of a LoL fan but the game does look cool and I’m sure if you are a fan of both games then you’re going to really love this game.
HearthStone – Rob Pardo. Originally a stealth/experimental project at Blizzard. Despite how “geeky” a battle card game seemed to be, when they were playing the game internally they logged so many hours they decided that they must have something pretty good, and thus HearthStone was born. This is Blizzards first tablet game and there will be iPhone and Android versions (haha, no Windows Phone!). Honestly, I can actually see myself playing HearthStone on my tablet more then on my computer.
**Big News** Going into beta next month.
If you went to the show or ordered a virtual ticket then you will get a special Blizzcon card called the Elite Tauren Chieftain and when you play the card, yea, its pretty awesome! Adding golden player cards, like the golden cards, which are fully animated. It looks kind of cool.
World of WarCraft – Of course the illustrious Chris Metzen talked to us about the WoW expansion. We all kind of knew it was called Warlods of Draenor – Metzen predicated the announcement by talking a lot of origins. He called the Alliance the “Captain America Faction” … love it! It sounds like we might be fighting some pretty old school villians which will be kind of cool to see (some names Metzen through out were Gul’dan, Hellscream, Blackmoore, etc. So it’ll be interesting. After building up the Alliance and giving some love to the Horde, the next expansion video debuts:
Warlods of Draenor – It will contain a new zone called Draenor (kind of obvious) The video said you will be able to build and upgrade garrisons so that might mean some kind of player housing. I’m sure the details of garrisons will come out in future panels, I will have to watch some of the other live blogs to learn more. Obviously the new level cap is 100. All the existing character models are getting new looks and upgrades and, of course, new items and loots. You can see the video below:
Please feel free to share anything you saw and your thoughts, positive and negative.
I doubt anyone really noticed but my website went offline Saturday morning. My uber-fuzzy site admin contacted me to tell me that my wordpress site had been compromised and I was unknowingly sending spam. Apparently about 12,000 a minute. My entire site had to be taken down and destroyed; thankfully the database was unharmed. I downloaded a fresh install of wordpress and using a few magical tricks, completely restored my site (granted there are a few minor casualties).
Spam bots and programs are vicious, maniacal devices.that somehow installed a couple of trojan php files hidden in wp-content folders. This past weekend Daylight Savings Time ended. There is a general rule of thumb that one should change the batteries in your smoke detectors the same time that the times change. I would like to add to that by suggesting that you also change all passwords for all accounts with sensitive material. Granted my blog site doesn’t contain any sensitive material so it hardly qualifies but I had to change my password as part of the process and also decided to retire that password altogether. By doing so it got me thinking that I hadn’t changed that password in such a long time which led me to my conclusion that I should be changing my passwords more regularly.
By the way, when I suggest that you change a password, I would suggest that its something completely different. I wouldn’t advise that you simply just increment a number. I would also suggest that you try to include some special characters into your password and make sure its a minimum of 8 – 12 characters, if not longer. Also, run anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on your computer, I would say as often as once a week depending on your browsing habits. Check out ClamWin for a free and pretty solid anti-virus program. I highly recommend you grab a copy of SpyBot Search & Destroy for your free anti-spyware program. If you have questions using either of these programs, please feel free to ask.
I’ve been a programmer for going on 10 years now. I’ve mostly been doing .NET development because that came fairly easy to me. I’ve done non-.NET programming on the side (i.e. HTML5, iOS, etc) but the bulk of my experience lies in .NET. I’ve been butting heads with Microsoft lately because I don’t like the direction they are moving with their desktop and mobile technology.
I’m not a fan of Windows 8. I haven’t been since I saw it the first time in beta. I’ve tried it on several occasions in stores and laptops of co-workers and friends. Every time I’ve tried it I have never liked it. The only functionality of Windows 8 that doesn’t bother me is functionality that is already in Windows 7 so in my opinion there is no need for me to warrant paying to upgrade. I give that same advice to everyone else I speak to (which isn’t just limited to friends and family, but work colleagues as well).
This presents a conundrum because as a .NET developer its important to be on the “bleeding” edge. I won’t kowtow to everything Microsoft produces just because “they are Microsoft and can do no wrong”. On the other hand, how can I move forward in my career when I don’t agree with the direction the technology is moving? To be fair, I would feel the same if it were something Apple or Google were doing that I didn’t agree with. I know I’ve had my resistances to Microsoft in my past but I would like people to believe me when I say that its not just because its Microsoft.
I will accept the premise that my “concerns” with Windows 8 are personal but I feel that I can separate personal and professional opinions. With that said, even in my professional opinion I disagree with the Windows 8 desktop look-and-feel. The desktop UX should be distinctly different then a tablet UX and combining them was a mistake that hasn’t even been corrected in Windows 8.1 (which many people are calling the Coca-Cola Classic of the Windows desktop but without the revival).
Can I weather this until the next version of Windows? If so, how?
Issue 91: Greetings Ghoulish Gamers! Halloween is just around the corner, do you have all your ghoulish plans ready to go? Perhaps your plans involve a little gaming while the kids are out getting their trick-or-treating on; or perhaps you have to man the door waiting for the arrival of this years lot of cosplay potentials? If sugar-seeking rugrats are keeping you from your favorite MMO, perhaps you will be able to check out these headlines (from your handy smart phone or tablet) while you wait.
There is an update coming to SWTOR that many players have been talking about since the games launch. There are also a couple of Blizzard announcements that pertain to more then just World of Warcraft. Some updates coming for FFXIV, Neverwinter’s first event, and other news. So eat some of that candy you’re handing out (you paid for it anyway) and read on! And try not to scare the kiddies!
I cannot believe we are still having a spat over the name of the Washington Redskins! The team has been known as the Redskins since 1933! Since you’re probably too obtuse to do the math, that’s 80 years folks!! Are we really still hoping to change the name of a team that has been around for 8 decades? The thing that really grinds my last nerve about this, its not even the Native Americans that are relentlessly bitching about this!
People are too damn sensitive these days! I feel like we’re all walking on eggshells because the slightest innuendo or phrase can be misconstrued to offend someone. Maybe we need to regress back to how cavemen spoke so our reduced vocabulary and guttural noises will keep everyone happy. Obviously we’re not all intelligent enough to know the difference between intentionally offending someone and the fact that its just a damn team name!
People are too thin-skinned! Maybe we should legalize marijuana because 50 years ago the people that would protest such minutia were the potheads but they were too stoned to be taken seriously. Today, through the power of Internet and the antagonist media, they are more obnoxious then ever! If you don’t like the team name, fine! Don’t be a Washington Redskins fan. Hell, I don’t care if you hate the NFL, then go watch a Curling match, I just don’t want to hear you spew your disgusting ignorance!
On a final note, shame on you Bob Costas! You ignorant turncoat!