Posts with tag japan

What does World of Warcraft sound like from an entirely different cultural perspective? Jump to about 8:30 in the above video and listen to the last moments of this heroic boss kill -- the point at which terse expletives usually bristle from from even the most disciplined, well-oiled raiders, the whole thing followed by a deafening avalanche of shouts and cheers when the boss finally falls. Contrast those expectations with the understated pleasure here of CAVAG, a guild of Japanese players on Proudmoore (US-Horde), and you'll gain a sense of just one of the more outward cultural differences between this group and the typical American raiding guild.

Welcome to the world of #wowjp, a network of Japanese WoW players who've learned English primarily through playing the game. You can find localized versions of World of Warcraft in Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, but Japanese players are left to their own devices -- no dedicated servers, no language localization. To solve those challenges, Japanese players have banded together to create their own Japanese game guides, share addons and tips for typing in Japanese within the game, and form a network of Japanese-language guilds across several North American realms.

Bringing us this interview with two Japanese WoW players is the Sha of Happiness, herself a native Japanese speaker and a member of the #wowjp community. But before we begin, a simple and heartfelt message from the Japanese players:

The wowjp community wished to tell the readers/Blizzard: "Thank you for providing the Hippogryph Hatchling for the tsunami relief efforts. Thank you for all of your donations."

Here's some wonderful news for the WoW community -- Blizzard's recent charity drive to help those in need after the recent devastating earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan has raised over $1.9 million for the American Red Cross efforts. At $10 per pet and 100% of the proceeds going to the American Red Cross, that's over 190,000 pet purchases since the pet went on sale in May. Good job, WoW community!

The Cenarion Hatchling is still up on the Blizzard store, so if you missed your chance to purchase the little guy for charity, you'll still be able to pick him up, as he is a permanent part of the store from here on out. Feel good about this one -- that's a lot of money going to people in need.

Editor's Note: Comments have been disabled in this post due to excessive trolling.

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Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

On Monday, Blizzard announced that it would begin selling a new companion pet in the pet store and that for a limited time (until July 31), 100% of the cost of the pet would go to the American Red Cross to aid victims of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. Blizzard used its art and time assets for a great cause, using a previously successful tactic to raise money for people in dire need. While Blizzard is not donating the money directly, it is facilitating donation collection and incentive by putting the pet up for sale.

What interests me is the level of fervor and the community outcry for this type of relief effort by Blizzard. Why are people so eager to push a corporation like Blizzard, which has a costly back end to monitor and maintain, into what amounts to a large-scale companion pet release for charity that people would have donated to anyway based on the generally accepted understanding that people are charitable? First, we need to learn a tiny bit about corporate donations and charity and explore why people like Blizzard in the first place. Second, we can ask why we want Blizzard to do the right thing.

Blizzard has just released a new pet at the pet store called the Cenarion Hatchling, a baby version of the hippogryph that once was only available as part of the old WoW TCG. A full 100% of the proceeds generated by this pet purchase will go to help the American Red Cross's Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief efforts, compared to the 50% from previous pets like the Pandaren Monk. The donation process will be ongoing through July 31.

Everyone and their mother has seen Blind by Percula, right? If not, go ahead and watch it above. Better yet, go to the actual vimeo page and watch it in high definition. Then come back here for more Blind-goodness.

Blindly satisfied? Great! It's been the #1 search topic on WoW Insider for a bit, so I know people must love it.

The only complaint that folks have about the video is the sound can be rather rough at times. I have to admit that I think this as well (to some extent), however it's nothing that really detracts from the video itself. Further, it's interesting to note that the audio distortion is present in the original song Percula uses as well, which leads me to believe it was an artistic choice of the artist.

But no matter what you think of the audio quality, I haven't ran into anyone who thinks the song doesn't match up beautifully with the animation and story itself.

But therein lies the question – what are the lyrics? The song playing is "Hide & Seek" by Namie Amuro. I wasn't familiar with her, so after some Wikipediaing, I learned that she is a Japanese singer that was, and to a large extent still is, quite popular.

Take a look after the break for more about the song "Hide & Seek," including the lyrics.