Posts with tag Blizzard

Blizzard and Valve have been going back and forth about ownership of the DOTA title for awhile now. It's a complicated issue that's been summed up very well by Joystiq's JC Fletcher: "Which giant company has the rights to the fan-created, community-promoted word 'Dota?'"

As of today, it turns out Valve has those rights. The two giant companies have amicably settled the issue amongst themselves. Valve will release its DOTA title as Dota 2, and Blizzard will release its as Blizzard All-Stars. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of All-Stars, anyway. It gives the name some real flavor and, as stated by Blizzard VP Rob Pardo, "ultimately better reflects the design of our game."

Of course, regardless of the decisions made here, the fan community will inevitably continue calling this genre of games DOTA or some variation thereof. If you care to read the full press release regarding this agreement, hop behind the cut below.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts at being pleasant and respectful, we run into "that guy." You may or may not know who they are. They may be male. They may be female. They may be young or old. But the one thing they are, no matter who they are, is rude, inconsiderate, and possibly a little scary. It seems odd that someone could be considered frightening in the context of a video game full of fanciful creatures made up of millions of pixels, but harassment exists, and it's not a laughing matter.

I hate using my ignore button. I'm one of those people who lives in a fantasy land where I assume and am forever hopeful that people can talk things out like two reasonable adults and come to a mutual, satisfactory conclusion about things. I hate stopping the flow of conversation, because I believe that everything can be worked out in due time as long as people are being reasonable.

Unfortunately, I've had to use that ignore button on more than one occasion, and I've had to deal with people who were anything but reasonable over the course of the seven years I've played this game. When someone crosses the line from reasonable to threatening, there is a distinct course of action a player should take.

Blizzard has posted a more detailed explanation of the revamped Scroll of Resurrection feature, allowing current players to send their friends seven free days to come back to the game, a free bump for one character to level 80, and a free server and faction change to your friend's new server. For the current player, you'll be given a faction-specific spectral mount if your resurrected friend pays for a month. All in all, it's an ambitious package to entice old players to return to Azeroth.

These new clarifications make sure that players understand the rules of the promotion and that this is a limited time deal. Blizzard will be letting everyone know with ample time before the promotion ends, but if you're interested in the mount, it might behoove you to get your Scroll of Resurrection out of the way early. What that says to me is a potential for rotating rewards for the Scroll of Resurrection. Multiple rewards or a new reward each year is a great way to get players to do their own grassroots advertising to get old players back into the game to sate their collector compulsions.

Hit the jump for the full list of clarifications.

A bit of an odd story has been floating around the WoW community today, revolving around former GM Amanda Lewis and her claims against Blizzard for alleged copyright infringement and voice misappropriation. Lewis claims that Blizzard, without permission, used her voice and songs in creating the baby murlocs, the adorable squeaky versions of the terrifying fish-man abominations. The complaint seeks damages for the misuse of her works.

While we don't have much more information other than the bit that's been reported, one of the key factors could be the clauses in her contract governing what happens to things employees create while on the job. Many companies have such invention policies in place to capitalize on employees' ideas and give them a place to go with said ideas to potentially make them real.

The interesting part of the complaint -- and for me, the most heartwarming, because you could tell a lawyer wrote it -- is that Lewis is claiming the baby murloc has become the de facto mascot of World of Warcraft. What do you guys think? When I think Warcraft, I think orcs, humans, war, yadda yadda -- not baby murlocs. If you're interested in a bit more of an in-depth analysis, look forward to my Lawbringer column next week.

Here's hoping for a quick settlement or summary judgmgrlrglrglrlglgglrrrllll.

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Blizzard will be reducing its global workforce by 600 people. About 540 (90%) of them will come from departments not related to game development. Blizzard makes note that the World of Warcraft development team will not be impacted by these layoffs.

Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard, has the following to say:

Mike Morhaime

Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business. Over the last several years, we've grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community. However, as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we've also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company.

Knowing that, it still does not make letting go of some of our team members any easier. We're grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the people impacted by today's announcement, we're proud of the contributions they made here at Blizzard, and we wish them well as they move forward.

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It's certainly bad news for those impacted, and we here at WoW Insider hope that everyone is able to land on their feet.

According to the press release, current publishing schedules for their various games will not be affected.

Update 1:00 p.m. EST: Another statement from Mike Morhaime, after the break.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, and esoteroic topics that slip through the cracks.

Behind the scenes, people are moving about, reading papers and commenting on filings and jockeying around the words of a paragraph to make it "feel" nicer. We don't like using the word "community," one might say, because it is a sympathetic word, and we do not need sympathy at this hearing. Thousands of dollars an hour are thrown at the problem for however long the team needs to work on it. I bet there were a few nice late-night sushi orders.

These are the stars of the show -- two copyright and trademark filing teams, potentially backed up by a litigation team, positioning over the DotA trademark ownership issue. Last week on The Lawbringer, I gave a summary of what is happening between Valve, Blizzard, Riot Games, and the DotA community, concluding that the fight over who owns the DotA name has to be fought now because of a fight brewing for years as the genre grew.

In order to expand our minds just a bit and start thinking like we want to understand the problem, we need to build a framework around the DotA issue with questions about what this is all about. Let's boil the issues down to simple questions.

Have you got any questions for the Blizzard creative development squad that concerns the lore of Warcraft, your favorite characters, or some lingering plot points? Blizzard has just opened the doors to Ask CDev #3, where you can submit your questions on the official Blizzard forums and hopefully get an answer or two from the lore gods and goddesses on high.

The last two Ask CDev features were informational and fun from a lore standpoint. While this question-and-answer format does not lend itself well to the class and systems balance types of discussion, the lore question and answers with the CDev folks usually provide some decent results. I would still love a chance to get a live chat going with the creative development people, much like how the class Q&As were broadcast in real time.

Head over to the World of Warcraft official forums to ask the creative development team your
questions (North American or EU). You can see our previous coverage of part 1 and part 2 of the Ask CDev feature.

Blizzard's full announcement after the break.

Anyone familiar with board games could tell you that there are about 100,000 different versions of Monopoly out there. There's an officially licensed The Wizard of Oz Monopoly. There's a Powerpuff Girls Monopoly. And a Looney Tunes Monopoly. Even the lousy IP-cash-in movie effort Cars 2 has its own version of Monopoly. So it would only stand to reason that World of Warcraft would get its own version of Monopoly eventually, right?

Right.

According to BlizzPlanet, an officially licensed World of Warcraft Monopoly will be unveiled at next week's Toy Fair 2012 in New York City. There really aren't any details as of yet, just that the board game will be showcased. Presumably, though, there will be a lot of customization involved, right down to the playing tokens.

Perhaps even more exciting than Monopoly (a game I am incapable of losing, FYI) is the companion Blizzard tie-in, Risk: StarCraft. Supposedly, the playing pieces for that game will include StarCraft II units. That's all sorts of awesome.

Update: BlizzPlanet has removed its references to these games in its Toy fair 2012 posting, so it's possible USAopoly was not prepared to announce these products yet.

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No matter how much we may love playing with our guilds and friends, sometimes we just want to take some time off and play in single-player mode. However, with the pervasiveness of the RealID system, is it truly feasible to go off the grid to do this? Syl over at Raging Monkeys attempts to tackle this very problem, arguing enthusiastically that we should be allowed this option, that it would not only be convenient but also would benefit those relationships we have built both in-game and out.

Personally, I'm a bit torn on the issue. On the one hand, I can identify with this situation, as I have been there many times before. My own friends would always want to level alts together, but our goals for those characters never quite lined up. I'd find myself creating secret alts on another faction, sometimes on another server -- not only to experience more of the story and lore than I had before, but to just be alone. Of course, this was all before the RealID system was implemented, because after its debut, I was not able to start a new draenei paladin or blood elf rogue without being flooded with questions and, admittedly, a little guilt.

On the other hand, there is a very simple solution to all of this: Put your foot down. If someone asks why you're on Area 52 rolling a worgen warlock (or why you're even rolling a warlock in the first place, yuck), I think we all can agree that the best solution would be to honestly and delicately state that you need some time off, away from all of your in-game obligations -- including those inquiring minds. But is confronting your pursuers really that easy? For some, this type of thing comes naturally, and I for one am extremely envious of these people. For others, confrontation of this sort is not something we want to deal with, and the option to hide from RealID becomes a safe, albeit passive-aggressive, option.

What do you think? Is this a feature that Blizzard should be working on, or should these players find other means of enjoying the game in solitary peace?

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Blizzard has announced that some information is coming about the highly anticipated Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's fourth expansion -- well, information with regards to when there will be information about Mists of Pandaria. In the middle of March, Blizzard will hold a special press event for members of the media to see what kind of progress has been made, in showable form, since BlizzCon 2011's impressively far-along demo.

As Nethaera posted, information is coming, and we now have a date. This feels like Blizzard's taking a page from the Apple book. Pressers and hype events like these work incredibly well for a company like Blizzard that is very much an Apple of its industry. By calling its own press conferences, conventions, and press trips rather than announcing information amongst the rest of the gaming industry at conventions like PAX, the message is much more focused and clear -- the cacophony is removed. I'm excited to know when new information will be available. Of course, I'd rather have the information, but a day to hope for is better than nothing. It's gonna get busy in March.

The World of Warcraft artists are second to none in the industry, masterfully turning concepts into game reality. What happens, sadly, when your awesome weapon graphics are overshadowed by the overzealous weapon enchant you are practically required to have? Blizzard is still looking into a way to deal with displaying weapon enchants, either through a toggle, some other interface switch, or some unannounced feature yet to be determined.

While I agree with Blizzard that iconic and recognizable looks are a great way to pinpoint what items are capable of how much damage and power, as we have seen with transmogrification, the general scope of iconic looks has changed drastically. If it's possible and feasible, Blizzard will allow us to toggle our enchants, especially after the success of transmogrification.

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Upset over the cancellation of BlizzCon 2012 and looking to drown your sorrows in a massive cup adorned with one of your favorite Warcraft characters? Blizzard is teaming up with ampm to promote World of Warcraft cups featuring Arthas, Kil'jaedan, Illidan, and Deathwing. We don't have a release date for the cups just yet, but look for more information as the promotion gets closer to beginning.

World of Warcraft is entering over seven years of operation and still going strong, enough so that regional advertising campaigns at widespread retailers are an attractive move. WoW has definitely eclipsed the video game market and is instead focusing on attracting new players because, for the most part, a lot of the home team market is dried up. By putting WoW in places where less typical gamers might encounter it, Blizzard has a great chance of attracting new people.

Can we please get the dataminers on this and tell us what size cups these are, as well as the materials used to make them? I love those study plastic cups. I'm waiting patiently.

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Warning: This post may contain language that is offensive to some.

Yesterday on the official World of Warcraft forums, a poster brought up the fact that the word "transsexual" gets censored by Blizzard's mature language filter. Almost immediately after, another poster brought up the fact that the word "homosexual" is censored as well. The obvious follow-up question has stirred a hornet's nest of controversy: Why are these considered bad words?

Predictably, that forum thread quickly spun out of control. It was ultimately locked by a moderator, but not before Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok chimed in:

"Transsexual" censored by filter

We've reviewed our filter list and there are a few words there that should not be blocked as profanity; we'll be removing them in a future patch.

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So case closed, right? Well ... hold on. Before we simply close the books on the matter, there are some important questions to be answered. Namely this: Why was "transsexual" censored in the first place?