Posts with tag future

If you're curious as to the fate of the WoW TCG, then check out this official statement by Bornakk. While the future of the TCG has been questionable since since Upper Deck had parted ways with Blizzard, that doesn't mean the TCG is going to end. The upcoming Wrathgate and Icecrown expansions are still on pace for the spring and summer. Realm Championships will still happen this weekend around North America, and all announced prizes will still be awarded (but trophies will not be ready yet).

For the full list of North American locations, check out that same thread.

A few of our readers (thanks, guys!) spotted this posting popping up on the various job boards recently -- Future US, the company publishing the World of Warcraft magazine that's due out any day now, is apparently seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Say what? They haven't even released the first issue yet, and they're already seeking a new head honcho? We did a little poking around, and it's true -- Dan Amrich, the man who originally held the position, has moved off already to another gig with Activision (though it seems coincidental that he's going to work for Blizzard's parent company), and Future is stuck seeking a new EIC even before issue one releases.

Does this mean the magazine is in trouble? True, it can't be good for the captain of a ship to move on just as it's heading out to port, but we've heard everything is still on course -- the first issue of the subscription (that quite a few people have already bought) is under Blizzard's scrutiny right now, and the second issue is well underway. Everything we hear still says they're aiming to release it sometime this month, but obviously if we hear anything else, we'll let you know. In the meantime, if you're in San Francisco, have a few years' publishing experience, and know a whole lot about World of Warcraft, we have this job you might want...

The announcement that Future and Blizzard are teaming up to produce World of Warcraft: The Magazine surprised almost everyone, I think. No more so because of the undeniable shift from print to digital media. However the fact that Blizzard is involved and the promise of no adverts and a "coffee table" kind of feel makes this very appealing. Granted the subscription is a little high, especially when you consider you're only getting four issues for your cash and yet I think a lot of people are going to sign up. I'm probably going to be one of them.

As a fanbase, we're know for collecting shiny things to do with our game of choice, whether it's a Wrath Collector's Edition or a Starcraft II messenger bag. Personally my thing is artbooks: I've got the whole set from the Art of the World of Warcraft to the Cinematic Artbook from last year's BlizzCon so the idea of a magazine loaded with artwork and interviews and all that jazz makes me very excited. What about you, constant readers, will you be tempted to subscribe?

Coming from left field, much to the surprise of everyone here at Team WoW.com, was the announcement of World of Warcraft: The Magazine which will be published by Future later this year. As promised, the website for the subscription-only quarterly went live in the wee small hours of this morning (GMT).

You're probably scratching your heads and wondering why we're mentioning this when there's all the BlizzCon fun and games to talk about. Well, amonght other things, there's a really nice piece of artwork of the Lich King by Wei Wang, who we believe is going to be named the Eighth Son of the Storm at BlizzCon.

On top of that are the first hints at what the first issue will contain: a piece on the game's fifth anniversary (which suggests we may well see it around November time), articles focusing on new content (which I'm assuming is either code for Cataclysm or a peek at patch 3.3), and the lore behind the legendary weapon Doomhammer.

This is probably the entry which is going to have theorists asking intriguing questions. The Doomhammer is currently held by Thrall, and it's one of those uber weapons which most players want to get their hands on but can't get (because it's not actually implemented). It turns out this weapon will be the next 'Frostmourne', a replica weapon that if you have the cash you will be able to purchase and hang on your wall to confirm your hardcoreness.

Either way, check out the website and hit the link to subscribe if you like what you see. Alternatively, if you're at BlizzCon this weekend, you can visit the Future booth and do it there.

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BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!

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In a rather surprising turn of events, Blizzard has announced that they're teaming up with publishing group Future to print a quarterly magazine about, you guessed it, World of Warcraft.

For the yearly subscription price of $39.95 USD, readers will receive four issues of the ad-free WoW magazine, including concept art, hints and sneak peeks at upcoming content patches and expansions, interviews with developers, strategies for raid and dungeon encounters, and more "insider and player perspectives". The issues are stated to be more than 140 pages long and glossy as heck.

It's admittedly rather shocking that a magazine like this is getting published -- not because of content or anything like that, but because print is considered a flagging medium. The formula for success here seems to be to offer a high-end product -- Future says they consider it more of a "collectible coffee-table book" than a magazine -- and sustain it on subscriptions alone, since it'll be free of advertising. Hopefully legions of fans will subscribe and give the 'zine its lifeblood, since it actually sounds pretty cool to me.

The first issue is scheduled to go to press at an as-yet-unknown date this fall, and is supposed to contain interviews with top guilds about Ulduar strategies, a retrospective on WoW for its fifth anniversary, and unnamed other content.

Those wishing to subscribe can visit the magazine's official website on August 21st -- that's BlizzCon day one -- and enter their info there, or visit the WoW Magazine booth at the 'Con itself.

Welcome to Scattered Shots, the weekly Hunter column which is written by a guy who doesn't generally spec for said talent.

So. I'm here. I'm not completely wrapped up in Wrath, I promise. In fact, just to show how much I am not wrapped up in the here and now, in the long lines for the queues and prospect of getting a beautiful worm pet and all that good stuff, I'm going to predict the future!

Let's look at some of the promises and perils that 3.1 and other future patches will bring for the Hunter.

The Warcraft storyline has come a long way since Orcs and Humans. Bobbyjeh of Aman'Thul asked how Blizzard maintains their "seemingly endless lore and story arc. Nethaera responded that the company has a Historian on staff as well as an expanding department dedicated to lore. They cover all three of the major Blizzard universes. They help to keep continuity in the game and keeps things interesting for our resident Lore Nerd.

While I was doing the quest chain for my Swift Flight Form, I wondered to myself. What does someone who's been asleep for so long know about Outland? I've often wondered how it is that new Draenei characters all crashed "one month ago." As some pointed out, there has been some discontinuity in the Warcraft Universe. But Blizzard does a pretty good job of keeping their story straight. No stranger than C3PO saying, "Thank the maker," when technically, Darth Vader is the maker. We accept these plot holes and move on.

Most of the news coming up from Blizzard has focused on Wrath of the Lich King. We've been working to cover the most up-to-date information on the expansion while staying on top of current events in the existing game. I am excited for Wrath, but I'm taking my time to enjoy the now until it comes out. There are still plenty of interesting non-Wrath-related things going on.

It can be a tough balance between sharing new mechanics and presenting spoilers. We've added features to the site like Ask a Beta Tester and Lichborne, which can be readily ignored if you're not up for spoilers. We've had some requests to slow down on the Wrath news, but many many more to keep it up. How much information do you want before the xpac is released? Take our little poll and let us know where you stand.

Wrath of the Lich King news started off as a trickle. First it was the development of the expansion than the addition of the Death Knight class. Then we had a lot of speculation and evasive answers from Blizzard. Now that the Beta test has been opened up there has been a flood of information. Most of this comes from the observations and mining of players, more so than Blizzard itself. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the WoW experience is waiting for Blizzard to give us information.

There are some tidbits that we're all excited to hear. When will we see Wrath go live? Will there be another expansion? Where does Kalgan live, and does he have decent body guards? I'd like to know if there are any plans for additional server types in the future.

We always do our best here to get as much information about WoW as possible as quickly as we can. If you had the opportunity to ask your three most burning questions of the game developers, what would you ask?

Once Wrath of the Lich King is released, we will have a whole new end-game continent. Just like how we got a whole new planet in the Burning Crusade. Since the first expansion was released many areas in the old world have been largely unused. There is very little World PvP going on in Eastern Plaguelands, most pre-sixty instances lay dormant except for quick runs with high level characters, and Onyxia lurks alone until someone nostalgic for original WoW until someone comes to slay her.

Dazknight of EU-Lightning's blade posed the question, what will happen to Burning Crusade content once Wrath comes out. If Blizzard continues to work only on the latest endgame content, it's likely that Outland, The Isle of Quel'Danas, dailies, and everything we currently experience will be largely forgotten. Noxmortum of EU-Kilrogg believes that Outland will be the province of characters leveling from 58 to 68, full of Death Knights for the first few weeks and then more of a ghost land than the Ghostlands. Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley will quite probably become very lonely, indeed.

With the Wrath Beta Opt-in available, we're one step closer to the expansion. We're all anxiously awaiting the time when the expansion is ready. I'm still having fun with the existing World of Warcraft, but I'm a bit antsy. There is a lot of frustration over existing conditions, especially when it comes to PvP.

Chloroform of EU-Magtheridon isn't interested in waiting. He listed his grievances in the EU-PVP Forum, "Balance issues, queue times, destroying premades, AFK problems, uneven teams, world pvp screwed by 9000yd aggro range ultra guards." Like many others, Jasse of EU-Bronzebeard blames the arena for the death of PvP.

While WoW is obviously a child of the early 21st century, all the practical tools used in D&D have existed for thousands of years. One might well wonder: "why didn't Plato (or any other suitably wise old figure out of history) ever think of putting together a dungeon adventure?" A recent Escapist magazine article asks that very question, and then provides us with a bunch of theories about what roleplaying is and why people do it. All these are interesting in themselves, but they leave me wondering "but wait... why didn't Plato ever think of it?" The answer I think the article is trying to give is that roleplaying is actually a form of social innovation that couldn't have existed before, because the culture and ideas to give it form hadn't developed until the '60s.

So tonight when you get home and log into WoW, especially if you are logging in to roleplay your character, remember that you are participating in an activity that is on the growing edge of human civilization. Just as, all those hundreds of years ago, it was a great innovation for the Greek playwright Aeschylus to bring two actors onto the stage at once as opposed to letting one actor and a chorus carry the show -- in our own era, the way players get together today to collaboratively create worlds, characters and stories with one another is a new and exciting innovation that never existed before. Roleplaying itself is one of many brilliant and beautiful examples of how society and culture continue to evolve and progress well into the the future... and beyond.

Tipster Felwrathe forwarded an article to us the other day by Forbes.com writer Michael Noer entitled "The Future of Video Games." He puts Warcraft in this category as well - despite the fact that some would still call it a Computer game rather than a video game (or the more elegant term, vidcon). And while he does manage not to take potshots at the game as others have, he still makes a few somewhat surprising predictions about what the future holds.

All the World's a Stage is a roleplaying column for thoughtful minds, published on Sunday evenings.

"David and his ilk are the last of a dying species!" cry out the Scrooges of WoW, "soon the creature 'Homo Sapiens Theatricalus,' more commonly known as a 'WoW Roleplayer' will go the way of the dodo, only to be spoken of in the annals of gaming history! Roleplaying is dead! Long live cynicism!"

Thus you may have heard -- but fear not: these rumors of roleplaying's demise have been greatly exaggerated. They're just reflections of a negative attitude on the part of people who don't really know what roleplaying is all about. Yet many roleplayers still get genuinely frustrated these days. "Things used to be so much better," they can be heard to say, "Back in the day, RP servers were just full of people roleplaying with everyone else... but now... <sigh>... it's just not the same." Indeed, Blizzard originally set up special realms specifically for roleplaying with their own special rules of conduct, and in the beginning these same roleplayers used to stand up for themselves when they saw others ignoring the rules that made their environment so special.

But then the WoW population doubled, tripled, and again quadrupled. It's been good for Blizzard's business, but not so good for the RP community, who thrived on their tight-knit system of knowledge and interaction. Nowadays, some players who might hope to give roleplaying a try start a character on an RP server only to find that no one seems to be roleplaying there. "Where did all the roleplayers go?" they ask. "What ever happened to those roleplaying rules? And how can I find people to roleplay with now?"

People are always talking about WoW as the 800-pound gorilla of the current gaming world (or at least the MMO sub-world). I don't have much non-WoW MMO experience, so I don't know where WoW innovated or where it just took/refined standard genre tropes. I do know that WoW must be making a big splash in the economic side of the gaming industry, with its massive legions of subscribers. I remember reading a while back about some game developers saying WoW was bad for the business because a lot of people were just playing WoW and not buying other games, and there may be something to that; I, for one, would almost certainly have bought a Wii by now if it wasn't for WoW.

What have you observed WoW's influence to be, good or bad, artistic or economic, in the gaming industry? What further influences do you predict it will have?