Posts with tag print

In the vein of the World of Warcraft magazine, Massively reports that NCSoft has announced a magazine for the MMORPG Aion. Unlike the quarterly World of Warcraft magazine, the Aion magazine will be digital-only and come out every four weeks, or roughly every month. The Aion magazine also features bonus in-game items for players who pre-order, such as armor dyes and consumables. The magazine announcement actually begs the question about whether there's much sense in publishing magazines for an MMO, a constantly evolving and growing game.

I subscribed to the World of Warcraft magazine mostly out of a love for the print medium, even though I'm well aware that the information published therein could be made obsolete by a single patch or hotfix. Working for WoW.com, I understand the value of online content which can be updated very quickly and frequently. Best of all, most online magazines (as opposed to Aion's digital format) are free. That said, the World of Warcraft magazine looked gorgeous from the previews and from an artistic standpoint, I always believed there was value in a well-made and laid out publication.

I'll have a better idea of what to think when my magazine actually arrives. That's the other thing. Aion's digital-only magazine will presumably be available for download, giving instant gratification. Online magazines are just one web browser away. The World of Warcraft magazine, on the other hand, was due to come out in the 4th quarter last year but encountered a few bumps along the road and was pushed back ever so slightly. When we learned that it finally started shipping early this year, I was pretty stoked to get my hands on one. But it's now March and nothing has arrived in the mail, so that's a big minus for print subscriptions right there. Sure, I live in Asia, but I paid my $69.95 just like everybody else. I'd almost forgotten about it, actually, but Massively's post about Aion's mag reminded me and got me more than a little upset that I haven't gotten my copy two months after folks started getting theirs. Kwurky can only keep me amused for so long, after all.

The newest in Blizzard's ever-expanding line of customizable merchandise, Print Warcraft just opened its doors to the public. Like FigurePrints, the site allows you to create merchandise based on your in-game characters, this time art like posters and prints.

While we've been having a bit difficulty accessing the site, likely due to launch-day growing pains, we know that the service allows a ton of customization options. Start by selecting your character, realm, and print size. Then choose from a number of templates, borders, backgrounds, character poses, pets, and more! The prices range from $17.99 for a 12x18 print to $29.99 USD for a 40x27 poster.

If you're actually able to place an order, please let us know how it comes out when you get it in the mail! If the price is right and so is the quality, it might be a decent Winter Veil gift to deck somebody's walls with. Or yours.

In celebration of the release of Patch 3.1, Secrets of Ulduar, FigurePrints is having a little sale. When placing your order, if you enter the promotional code 'ULDUARSECRET' you'll get 10% off of the price of your Print. Normal price being $129.95, you get $13 off bringing the subtotal to $116.95. Shipping is about $20, so your print would come to $136.90. This sale will only last through the 30th, so you have a little under two weeks to make your purchase.

I suspect that discounted price is still too high for most people, and only the crazy folk like me will pick up on it. I bought a FigurePrint at full price awhile back, and it was certainly worth it to me, even if the print was much smaller than I expected it to be. It was less a monument to my character, and more a little physical memory of what I've been doing for four years. That's worth $150 to me. To most people? Probably not. That's rather steep for what you get, even if it is crafted for your character.

Beckett Media is a company normally known for their collectible magazines -- they cover things like baseball cards, Yu-Gi-Oh, toys, and all of that other junk most people don't bother with (ok, ok, I kid, collectors, but I don't get the point of buying toys you don't take out of the box). Apparently, a little while back, Beckett started to get into another field where most of what you do is collecting: massively multiplayer online games, and they started a magazine called Beckett Massive Online Gamer. And now, they've started publishing a series of biannual guides for various online games, starting with our very own World of Warcraft.

We haven't seen the guide, but their sales page promises "tips for conquering dungeons, guides for leveling to 70," and "perfecting WoW endgame classes," all for only $9.99. To tell the truth, it sounds pretty lame (not to mention that you can get exactly the same stuff right here for the low, low price of free), but at least there's another print competitor to the official Brady Guides -- if you absolutely need your WoW news in print form, you've got at least two choices now.

Anyone seen one of these yet? Next time you're at the collectibles store, see if they've got one sitting on the magazine shelf and let us know what it looks like.

OGLE, the OpenGLExtractor, is a little piece of software that can be used to extract 3D geometry data from 3D graphics applications running on Microsoft Windows. What this means is that it can pull out images of our favorite alternate reality for our own entertaining uses. While some people use this to make backgrounds or videos, one of the most interesting uses of this technology seems to be making 3D printouts of your character, using a special 3D printer. And, most recently, color 3d models. While this little gnome may appear to be venturing around Un'goro, it's probably just sitting on a tree in someone's back yard. (Which, to a tiny gnome figurine, is probably about the same.) And if you're just that kind of fan, you might be able to get one of your very own...!