Warcraft Experience

What will happen when two vastly different virtual worlds bridge the gap between them? Better yet what will happen to the monthly fee we already pay?!

A very interesting project that is currently in the planning stages is a proposed link between the two immensely popular and successful virtual worlds, World of Warcraft and Second Life!

SL and WoW respectively represent the state of the art in the narrative and non-narrative, game and non-game metaverse, but their cultures, aims, and the experiences they provide are dramatically different. WoW players often dis on SL users (“Oh, it’s just a boring social world”), and vice versa (“You can’t *do* anything in WoW”), perhaps based partly on a lack of understanding and shared experience. Some people say WoW is prototyping the future of work and some people say Second Life represents the future of the Internet. Obviously something important is happening with each.

Enter SLoW. A first attempt towards uniting both ends of the virtual world spectrum by providing a temporary bridge (or at least a window) between them.

To find out more about this unique proposal, or even get involved, follow this link to the SLoW home page!

According to an article on BBspot.com all GMail/WoW users can now check their in-game mail, or will be able to in patch 1.11 anyway. Can’t wait to see how much moola you made while at work – all you need is a GMail account and a plug-in from Blizzard.

————————————-
Patch Allows World of Warcraft Mail
To Be Check in Gmail
By Brian Briggs

Mountain View, CA – Blizzard announced that in the next patch for World of Warcraft players would be able to check in-game mail through Google’s gmail. The much needed ability will allow players to see if their Glowing Brightwood Staff or Libram of Focus sold at auction without the anxiety of waiting until they get home from work.

To check in-game mail players will need a gmail account and an add-on from Blizzard. Frank Ragnos from Google was excited by the partnership. “Many World of Warcraft players don’t have gmail accounts, so we see this as a real engine for growth.”

As part of the agreement with Blizzard, Google agreed to slow down the password authenticating process. “We don’t want users outside of the game to have an advantage over game players,” said Marc Kassenbaum from Blizzard. “We asked for a ten to fifteen minute delay when logging into the account with random disconnects for added realism.”

Players were enthusiastic about the announcement. “I don’t spend much time outside of Warcraft,” said Harold Gramble from Indianapolis. “If I do leave the game it’s good to know I can keep up to date.”

For now the service, dubbed WoWmail, will be limited to reading mail only, but Blizzard hinted future patches may expand functionality.

Straight off from Slashdot.org’s website:

CTD writes “Grimwell Online notes that IGE has announced a merger of networks involving: Thottbott, Allakhazam, OGaming, and L2Orphus. There is a thread in the Allakhazam forums that brings all the release data together – but still leaves some questions about what is to come. Grimwell raises one in his post about this: ‘Even more fun for our friends who work PR for gaming companies. IGE = RMT, which is not the Devil – but is not exactly welcomed at most companies. Will this move help push things past the tipping point and force developers to deal with the new, larger network?’”

The new network will be called Zam.com and the deal occurred back in November 2005. Amazing what can happen behind the scenes.

So I wonder what this means for all of us?! Any thoughts?

Here is some crappy news for our little world, reported by InfomationWeek.

A new password-stealing Trojan targeting players of the popular online game “World of Warcraft” hopes to make money off secondary sales of gamer goods, a security company warned Tuesday.

MicroWorld, an Indian-based anti-virus and security software maker with offices in the U.S., Germany, and Malaysia, said that the PWS.Win32.WOW.x Trojan horse was spreading fast, and attacking World of Warcraft players.

If the attacker managed to hijack a password, he could transfer in-game goods — personal items, including weapons — that the player had accumulated to his own account, then later sell them for real-world cash on “gray market” Web sites. Unlike some rival multiplayer online games, Warcraft’s publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, bans the practice of trading virtual items for real cash.

“Win32.WOW is a clear indication that malware writers are targeting anything that involves money,” said MicroWorld chief executive Govind Rammurthy in a statement. “Bucks may be smaller compared to a Trojan that steals bank accounts or credit card numbers…[but] cyber criminals are not complaining as long as the target is soft and numbers are high.”

Read the Full Article on InfomationWeek

Tigole from Blizzard wanted to share a bit of info with us today. Have a listen…

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on what the Dungeon and Raid team has been working on lately

Karazhan
Karazhan is slated to be a max level, 10 person raid instance in the expansion. Its absolutely massive. Its also non-linear although it does become linear at certain points. There are at least a dozen bosses in there so far. Using the raid saving tech, well be able to make a small raid dungeon (only 10 people) where players can save their progress if they cannot do the whole thing in one night. We’re trying to implement ways for them to quickly get back to where they were if theyve already made progress in the dungeon. For example, after you kill certain bosses, you can open a door thats a shortcut from the entrance.

Hellfire Citadel
This is the first dungeon players will encounter in the expansion. It lies in Hellfire Peninsula, the zone just beyond the Dark Portal. We’re planning on making this a winged dungeon. Right now, two of the wings are scheduled to be lower level level up wings (for players leveling to 70). One of the wings is slated to be a maximum level 5-person dungeon. And lastly, there’s Magtheridons Lair, a raid wing similar to Onyxias Lair in size and scope what I like to call a quick raid. Of course, during the development cycle this could all change. Same goes for the Beta. But thats how we’re approaching this dungeon currently.

Naxxramas
Naxxramas will come out in Patch 1.11 and will be previewed at E3 in a couple of weeks. This raid dungeon is massive and hosts more bosses than you can wave a stick at. And a really big stick at that. Currently, Naxxramas is in internal testing. After a few more weeks of internal testing, well put it on the PTRs for an extended test period so that you guys have time to hammer the encounters and provide us with feedback. We’ll also be doing a lot of tuning during internal testing and during the PTR time. Expect the difficulty of encounters to fluctuate a lot on the PTRs. Expect a lot of info regarding Naxxramas to come out during E3.

Other Dungeon/Raid stuff
We’re working on a bug fix thats preventing people NOT on the upgrade quest from seeing the Barons additional loot table in the event that they kill him in under 45 minutes. We’re hoping to get this out sooner than 1.11 but it might take a client patch to fix.

Also, Patch 1.11 has some great interface improvements coming. More info on that late.

I saw rumors of the impending release of this WoW spin-off site on FileNuts homepage ages ago. If you do a search you’ll notice I have a post on it from about a month or so ago.

Well… I found this on the official WoW forums:

http://wow.filenuts.com/

If you’re an author, please head to that site, create an account, and submit your mods to the site. The WoW section is brand new. While our team is adding mods as quick as we can find them, authors can submit them and update them on their own as well. Traffic on this site will be similar to worldofwar.net/wowinterface.com.

If you have trouble during registration of your username because of an “invalid code”, it’s that silly text graphic system, it’s case sensitive, so enter in caps please

We’re putting the finishing touches on the site as far as usability and removing a lot of the ads that are there, but we wanted to get the mods on before the site went 100% live.

Any questions just shoot us a PM or mail.

-Ben

So be sure to do your part and claim your mod or download until your heart’s content.

Drysc from Blizzard is sharing some information about more bag space in 1.11. Have a listen…

I thought I would let you all know that we have recently posted information relating to stack increases in 1.11, a good portion of which affect rogues specifically.

Topics relating to inventory management, such as space limitation and item stacking often present themselves on our boards. Which is why we wanted to take the time to inform you all of some changes that we’re planning for the next content patch; beyond the implementation of key-rings, discussed here:

# Leather (Light, Medium, etc.) will stack to 20
# Hides (Light, Medium, etc.) will stack to 10
# Cured Hides (Light, Medium, etc.) will stack to 20
# Enchanting Shards (Small Brilliant, etc.) will stack to 20
# Enchanting Dusts (Strange, Illusion, etc.) will stack to 20
# Rogue Poisons (Instant, Crippling, etc.) will stack to 20
# Rogue Poison Reagents (Essence of Pain, Deathweed, etc.) will stack to 20
# Flash Powder will stack to 20

Additional improvements in this area are always a possibility, but currently what’s detailed above is the change that was decided upon after careful evaluation.

Blizzard Europe reports in with more accounts being banned. Have a listen…

In keeping with Blizzard’s aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, we have since the release of patch 1.10 banned over 3100 accounts for participating in activities that violate the game’s Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such actions can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall enjoyment of its players. Please note that selling World of Warcraft content such as gold, items, and characters can result in a permanent ban of the accounts involved, from World of Warcraft.

We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in Europe in order to protect the service and its players from players who seek to cheat. Many account closures come as the direct result of reports to our Game Masters in-game or emailed to hacks@blizzard.com by legitimate World of Warcraft players. If you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction via one of the means listed above. All reports will be investigated and those which prove false will not result in any action against the accounts reported.

Thank you for your continued support and good luck with your adventures in Azeroth!