Posts with tag blizzard

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.

source

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?

As Blizzard charges into 2012 with three big releases (Mists of Pandaria, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and Diablo III) coming soon, rumors begin to swirl as a new job posting became available on the Blizzard career site for a franchise development producer. The interesting facts in the job listing are that the position is for the next-gen MMO, focused on working with consumer brands and creating brand-extending merchandise.

What does this mean for the next-gen MMO currently roasting slowly at Blizzard's complex? We don't really know. If we look at other games that have had advertising, it's usually in the form of billboards or sponsorships, featuring products that you and I know of. The possibilities for where ads could go within the game world of an MMO are endless, but it does preclude some settings and time periods. Intriguing, no? Something to freak out about? Definitely not.

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One of the hallmarks of the MMO genre is the fluidity at which these games can change. New pieces are added on and entire game systems are revamped in ways that would utterly decimate closed games that ship on the disc and then that's the end of it. With the impending release of The Old Republic, I wanted to give a rundown of some of the features and game systems that I personally feel would be at home in World of Warcraft along with cool ways Blizzard could grow its own world. (Also, check out my previous article about other MMO concepts WoW could borrow from.)

AoE looting, redux

AoE corpse looting is the new hotness, and it's here to stay. The fact that Blizzard has not found a way to even make AoE looting an option in WoW yet goes beyond my capacity to understand. Rift made the concept part of the mainstream, and The Old Republic is solidifying the feature as a Day One expectation.

In both of these games, players can choose to loot all corpses in an area around them at once instead of having to click on each corpse individually. Not only is this a great quality-of-life change for players, since less clicking is usually a good thing, but it also helps many players with disabilities who have trouble finding that one corpse under a hundred.

Blizzard's A Day in the Life series just published A Day in the Life of Bashiok, one of Blizzard's community managers. CMs can have the dubious distinction of being the third most oft-cursed names by World of Warcraft players, next to Ghostcrawler and possibly Mike Morhaime. They're the players' links to the world-spanning organization that is Blizzard Entertainment and thus the easy target of a lot of hunter angst.

Blizzard has just released its official talent calculators for Mists of Pandaria, in which the talent system is getting a major overhaul. Instead of talents being point placement decisions, this new system engages the player in one very important and specific choice every 15 levels. Skills from talents are now learned automatically as a player progresses through his chosen spec. The currently displayed talents are not set in stone and can (and will) change during Mists' development. If you click on a class' spec, you can also see its skill progression through the life of the character to see what skills you will be gaining. This new system is really, really slick.

Check out Blizzard's official Mists of Pandaria talent calculators on the WoW community blog.

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World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is the next expansion, raising the level cap to 90, introducing a brand new talent system, and bringing forth the long-lost pandaren race to both Horde and Alliance. Check out the trailer and follow us for all the latest MoP news!

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Readers, do you have what it takes to intern at Blizzard Entertainment, the fortress of crazy talent that has brought you such video game titles as World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and the Diablo III beta? Blizzard is looking for a few good interns for the 2012 summer. There are internships available in many departments at Blizzard ranging from development and publishing to QA and e-sports. That e-sports internship sounds like a huge opportunity for the right enterprising young Blizzard fan.

You're going to have to be a current U.S. college student or returning to college after summer 2012. You're going to be interning at the Blizzard campus in Irvine, California, so having some proximity to Irvine would probably be a good thing to have. Don't forget to apply by Jan. 31 for this awesome opportunity.

Oh, Cataclysm. You've gotten such a bad rap. Despite popular opinion, what we got from the Cataclysm expansion was nothing short of a miracle -- one that was desperately needed after the prior two expansions' worth of content. But it's undeniably difficult to look at the current expansion with anything other than an overly critical eye, considering the fact that we're playing through all that content right now.

In hindsight, it's likely the current expansion will grow on us, and some time in the distant future we'll be looking back on it with rose-colored glasses just like we do the others before it. Don't get me wrong -- while classic, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath all had absolutely fantastic reasons to love them, things didn't seem so rosy and wonderful when we were all playing through that content, and there was just as much grumbling in each of those expansions as there is about Cataclysm now. But hey -- there's still plenty of reasons to love Cataclysm.