A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Tag: World of Warcraft Page 17 of 22

The MMO Times: Help Sandy Victims!

Issue 56: Hello again, Gamers! The Christmas season is in full swing and with only 18 days left, assuming the world doesn’t end in two weeks, I hope you have all your Christmas shopping completed, or nearly completed. We have some good stuff in this issue. One of the key headlines I want to point everyone too (especially if you are playing World of Warcraft) is the new pet store pet whose sales help Sandy Victims.

And speaking of Blizzard they are already talking patch 5.2 which is estimated to be 2-4 months away. There is also more Aion, Elder Scrolls Online and Age of Wushu news. The news for Age of Wushu seems to be increasing as we approach that February 1st release date (which is now less than two months away). There should be lots here to wet the proverbial appetite so read on and game on, friends!

(I also provide The MMO Times in an e-mail. If you are interested in receiving the e-mail version please click here to subscribe.)

What If Your MMO Shutdown

Last week the MMO community bid farewell to a much adored game, City of Heroes. I remember when CoH came out and I knew several people that were playing it. I had friends that would often return to Paragon City when they were bored with World of Warcraft. I never played City of Heroes but I considered it many times. It looks like Massively did a good job broadcasting the final sign off as the servers were shutdown for the last time (you click here to see the video if you want, its a little over an hour and a half.)

Every time I read about a title shutting down I often think about what I am currently invested in. While I am still in the process of returning to SWTOR, I still play WoW quite regularly. I often hypothesis what I would do if Blizzard suddenly announced that they had to shutdown all of the WoW servers permanently. It would be heartbreaking because I have made quite a few friends. I have been in the same guild for over 7 years and most of those friends have been there just as long as I have.

If the servers were to be shutdown forever the only thing I could think to do would be to start visiting some of my favorite locations in Azeroth and start amassing a ridiculous collection of screenshots. I’d probably do every raid and dungeon in the game. Screenshots of all my toons, my various pets, mounts, etc. Most importantly I would be taking screenshots with everyone from the guild. I would definitely have to post these images in a gallery somewhere and give everyone access. Perhaps even keep the website alive so we can all touch base every now and again.

I’m sure many of us would move on to another game, but I doubt if I would invest the same amount of time and energy. I think doing it once is enough for me, doing it again would be akin to madness. It’s really difficult to say what I would do especially when its hypothetical. In fact there is a greater likelihood that life will be the reason I stop playing before all the WoW servers go offline but you never know what tomorrow brings.

So what would you do if your game ended?

The MMO Times: Jedi, Zombies & Kitties!

Issue 52 – Greetings again, Gamers! It has kind of been a slow week for gaming news, I think with all that news regarding Hurricane Sandy and the Election, but there is some pretty exciting things in this issue. If you are an avid pet collector in WoW then you are going to be excited about the “hot” little item coming soon and its sales will help the relief efforts of those displaced by Hurricane Sandy.

There is also more news about Elder Scrolls Online, the SWTOR announcement we have all been waiting for, more unveils for Aion 4.0, a new MechWarrior Online trailer, and more. Hopefully I have wet  your taste buds enough to put down the Halo 4 and check out these headlines. Read on and game on, friends!!

WoW: Add-ons and LUA

I can get a little add-on crazy with WoW sometimes. I know there are a lot of people out there that like to troll about using add-ons but I say to each their own. I currently have 25 add-ons installed (I don’t really know if that is a lot or little compared to what others are running). I recently downloaded an add-on that hasn’t been updated since March 2011 and the author has said that he won’t be updating it anymore because of changes in life, which is understandable.

Remarkably the add-on still worked great but there were a couple of idiosyncrasies that I wished could be tweaked. I thought, well, I’m a programmer by trade so I opened up the code and, in about 10 minutes, figured out what I could do to change the add-on.

So it got me thinking, would it be worth perhaps taking over this add-on and/or perhaps venturing into my own add-on endeavors. I don’t know if there is a suggested method or IDE for writing and debugging add-ons other then clicking save and launching the game to see if you get any LUA errors. Perhaps its something I will start researching. Has anyone else out there spent some time messing around with LUA and writing/maintaining add-ons?

The MMO Times: Frankenstorm!

Issue 51: Greetings Gamers! I hope all of you, and your loved ones, are safe from Hurricane Sandy rampaging through the eastern seaboard. I imagine if you are on the east coast, and reading this, then you are in good shape. I think with Halloween this week and Sandy being the bigger story, there wasn’t too much to read about this past 10 days.

There is more RIFT expansion news, including the revelation of the Defiler soul. More beta news for RIFT and MechWarrior Online (which is due out February 1st). There is also the second, of three, new classes in Aion has been revealed, complete with a video; that’s definitely worth checking out. So stay safe, stay dry and keep on gaming!

WoW: Is Player Housing Coming?

I never played Farmville because I didn’t use Facebook to play stupid games; I barely play games on my iPhone and iPad. I was rolling my eyes when I first read about The Tillers which is, for all intents and purposes, Blizzard’s adaptation of Farmville in WoW. Now we are three weeks into the expansion and I find myself checking my farm first thing.

I’m addicted to my farm! I even log out at the Inn above Halfhill Market. While I have no inclination to start doing Farmville, the mechanic Blizzard has developed to allow every player to have their own farm has my mind wondering … is player housing coming?

Apparently I’m not the only one. I, lovingly, stole this excerpt from a post of The Queue from WoW Insider:

BlazeNor asked:

With this farming aspect added to the game that seem to be done with phasing, do you think this could open the door to housing? For example allowing players to own a piece of land and building on it though reputation and dailies.

I absolutely do think it could lead to that, yeah. I think our farm in Mists of Pandaria is Blizzard’s testing ground for player housing. The question has always been, if they give us player housing, what do you do there? Do you just retire after a hard day of questing, make some popcorn, and watch some TV in your house in Stormwind? No, that’s boring. They won’t just give us a room to put up some paintings or whatever and leave it at that. They would want player housing to be an activity, something with goals and objectives. Our tiny little farm in Valley of the Four Winds is a good example of housing being an actual activity — to get something for your farm, you need to work towards it, you have to earn it. It’s a great start. They’re seeing what works and what doesn’t.

I could totally see them building on the Mists of Pandaria model and doing something like … we’re on whatever continent or planet comes next, and the Alliance (or Horde) entrusts you with a newly established, totally ramshackle stronghold. You need to improve its fortifications, make friends with local warlords or mercenaries, recruit officers, and bling out your throne room. That would be way more epic than an apartment in Old Town. Though the roleplayer in me thinks an apartment in Old Town would be pretty sweet, too.

I know that Blizzard has been talking about the possibility of player housing for a few years now and I agree with the author (Alex Ziebart) of that post. I think its very possible to implement player housing and I do think Sunsong Ranch is their beta test. Actually the idea of revitalizing a “ramshackle stronghold” is really cool. I think I almost like it better then player housing.

I have noticed something though that I think they may have to tackle. Even when you are in a group with someone, you cannot visit their farm. I would think that if you introduce player housing or player strongholds, players will probably want to invite their friends to come over and play.

Perhaps that is something Blizzard is working out as well.

/Cheers!

Page 17 of 22

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén