by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 30th 2012 at 9:00AM
Filed under: Mists of Pandaria
by Alex Ziebart Jun 15th 2012 at 9:30PM
Filed under: News items, Mists of Pandaria, Diablo 3
by Alex Ziebart Jun 1st 2012 at 7:00PM
Filed under: News items, Mists of Pandaria
by Michael Gray May 18th 2012 at 8:00PM
Filed under: News items
by Alex Ziebart May 11th 2012 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items
by Mathew McCurley Jan 27th 2012 at 3:00PM
Filed under: Podcasts, Podcasting, WoW Insider Show
by Shawn Schuster Mar 17th 2009 at 10:30AM
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How do MMOs make money? The Simple Lifeforms blog went through a recent DFC Intelligence report on the most commercially successful MMOs and pulled out some interesting points. World of Warcraft took home the most revenue for a single game in 2008 with an estimated $500M+ and all MMOs combined (worldwide) earned an estimated $1,875M. |
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Chinese online game market operating in loss When many of us think about MMOs, we think about companies who rake more money than we could dream about. Enough money to put together a scale model of Paris made out of 20 dollar bills. |
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Will 2009 be the best year ever for MMOs? Tipa is wondering if the upcoming 2009 MMO titles will make this year the best yet for MMOs. EVE Online will be receiving its highly anticipated Apocrypha expansion pleasing the "impact PvP" crowd. Free Realms will soon launch to the delight of families around the world, providing another option in the "kid friendly" category. |
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Co-Chairman of Activision Blizzard cashes in stock for $20 million Just in time for Activision Blizzard's earnings report, Co-Chairman Brian Kelly liquidated 2 million shares of his stock in the company on March 12, earning over $20 million in the process. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Shawn Schuster Mar 10th 2009 at 8:30AM
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Do you have a springtime MMO? Spring is nearly here, and that means new videogame releases are bound to decline over the coming months until summer arrives with nary a release in sight. For us MMO gamers, though, what it generally means is we look for a particular game to pack away -- like geeky summertime squirrels! |
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GM Dave goes for a ride in World of Warcraft, finds out it's not Final Fantasy XI Everyone's favorite drunken Final Fantasy XI game master, GM Dave, has decided to finally cross over to the dark side and take a spin in World of Warcraft. Instead of relating his experiences with feeding people who call GMs for unnecessary reasons to the FFXI dragon Jormungand, he's been asked to relate his experiences with World of Warcraft for one entire week by one of his site's donators. |
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The Escapist takes a look at multiboxing Multiboxing. It sounds like cheating when you have one man controlling two or more characters, but it's more of a pain to work with than it is a straight out cheat. Whatever your feelings are on the situation though, you have to admit, people who do multiboxing have some tremendously interesting setups and rigs to accomplish this difficult feat. |
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Your favorite MMO pop culture reference? It seems like no matter which way you turn in many MMOs, you'll eventually find a pop-culture reference nestled in there somewhere. While World of Warcraft may be perhaps the most blunt about using them with quests named after things as varied as a Peter Murphy song and a Kevin Smith movie, we know they're by no means the only designers who have added references. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Shawn Schuster Mar 3rd 2009 at 8:30AM
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World of Warcraft as addictive as cocaine? BS! Swedish news outlet, The Local, interprets this with the headline 'World of Warcraft is as addictive as cocaine', a statement that is neither supported by the quotes, nor apparently supported in fact. |
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The Daily Grind: Will you be taking advantage of Dual Specs? Will you be making use of dual specs in World of Warcraft, or are you pretty set with your current spec? If you're not going to use it regularly, will you instead use it for trying out other builds for fun? If you will be using it, have you got your two favorite specs planned out yet? What will you be switching between? |
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Sometimes, it's the little things in (virtual) life After playing so many games, there are moments that stick out in my mind that make me smile. Some of them are these really epic stories about boss battles, or hard fought PvP moments, or personal notes of glory and triumph. Yet others are drastically different. They're calm, touching moments, where the game either really affected me on an emotional level or wowed me with some attention to detail. |
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WoW Lead Systems Designer tells people to play other games It must be nice to dominate the MMORPG market so thoroughly that you actually recommend your players try out other competitors to stave off burnout in your game. Ghostcrawler, Lead Systems Designer for World of Warcraft did just that. "If you're just burned out, it's also not the worst thing in the world to try out some other games -- the past couple of years has been great for them. Just check back in with WoW every now and then." |
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MMOGology: Phasing phwns the phuture It's been fascinating to watch MMOGs evolve over the past fifteen years I've been playing them. They started out as text based worlds populated by a few hundred people with over-active imaginations. Today they're a mainstream hobby endorsed by celebrities like Mr. T and William Shatner. Whoulda thunk? |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Shawn Schuster Feb 24th 2009 at 9:00AM
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The guilt of an MMO gamer Last week, my Warrior hit the Defence cap, I got my first 25 Emblems of Heroism, and I tanked Archavon on 10-man. This week though, I've hardly even logged on. |
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It won't be World of Warcraft 2 When Jeff Kaplan announced his move to the company's next-gen MMO, I didn't wonder if World of Warcraft would suffer. I also didn't ponder why Blizzard and Jeff made that choice and if it would mean their second massively multiplayer online entry was going to effective be a sequel to their first. All I considered was which MMOs they were going to pluck ideas from this time, and how cleverly they'd could be implemented. |
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World of Warcraft: So easy, a caveman can do it If it feels like World of Warcraft may be losing its luster for your, then chances are that you feel the game has become too easy. Since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, a large chunk of the game population has hit 80, done the heroic dungeons, and even entered into the raids with ease. Has the game become too easy? |
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Do WoW players make better citizens? Reporting for The Capital Times, Jeff Richgels asks, "Can massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft produce better citizens?" His article covers the work of Constance Steinkuehler, a University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor who's been studying the social dynamics inherent to MMOs, namely World of Warcraft. |
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Greening up your gaming experience While you're engaged in your favorite MMO, do you ever stop to think about the energy consumption you use? Is there an unused light on in the house somewhere? These are the types of questions that Professor Byron Reeves of Stanford University wants gamers to ask themselves, and get more involved with through a system of smart metering technology built into the games. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Michael Zenke Feb 10th 2009 at 9:00AM
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The World outside Warcraft Blizzard's fantasy title World of Warcraft is everywhere these days, perhaps the only title to really pierce the veil between MMOs and mainstream media. For some massively multiplayer online gamers, WoW is the end-all be-all of titles out there. Can over 11 million people be wrong? |
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Is World of Warcraft a religion? Just when you thought you had heard it all, MMO gamers are now being called religious zealots. According to Theo Zijderveld, a grad student at the University of Colorado, gamers who experience online worlds "like World of Warcraft and Second Life" are doing so to transcend their physical bodies and "realize a new identity in cyberspace". |
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Scott Jennings puts a cap on the whole "Fixing MMOs" thing Tom Chick pointed out five things that are broken with MMOs (interesting because he doesn't really like MMOs). Scott Jennings responded by saying not all MMOs are WoW. Tim Dean then supported Tom's original statements, offering ten ways to fix MMOs. |
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WAR population numbers revealed, but what do they mean? When Mythic Entertainment released Warhammer Online on September 18, 2008, it quickly became the fastest selling MMORPG ever. A month after release, they announced WAR had registered 750,000 players and people were buzzing that it may actually make a noticeable dent in World of Warcraft's armor. But as the expression goes: good things usually don't last. |
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Official Champions DevBlog: Design Director Bill Roper on Storytelling If you're interested in following the insights straight from the team make sure to follow our very own Champions Developer blogger, who will be doing the honors of posting your bi-weekly dose of DevBlog goodness. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Michael Zenke Feb 3rd 2009 at 11:00AM
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Is World of Warcraft a religion? Just when you thought you had heard it all, MMO gamers are now being called religious zealots. According to Theo Zijderveld, a grad student at the University of Colorado, gamers who experience online worlds "like World of Warcraft and Second Life" are doing so to transcend their physical bodies and "realize a new identity in cyberspace". |
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Other hero classes were considered for World of Warcraft expansion The latest official podcast of World of Warcraft, BlizzCast Episode 7, features talk about a wide range of topics in the context of Wrath, but one thing that stands out is Brack's mention of hero classes, and the difficulty in narrowing down to one hero class for release from a pool of 29 hero classes that were complete. |
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The Lich King's casual decree: No geek left behind? Sean "Gamers with Jobs" Sands, a self-described casual gamer, claims that he and 10 million or so other casual gamers have achieved what competing MMORPGs have so far been unable to; they ruined World of Warcraft. |
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World of Warcraft makes up half of Activision/Blizzard's earnings What really makes their bottom-line work, though, is apparently the mightiest MMO on the planet. According to an analyst at the firm, World of Warcraft is backing a full half of the company's stock price. That is, above and beyond the actual revenue the game pulls down the game is responsible for $400 million of the company's share price. |
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Mythic announces the first live expansion to Warhammer Online! Massively.com recently had the chance to speak with Warhammer Online Executive Producer Jeff Hickman. Mr. Hickman laid out for us the much anticipated 'bombshell' news for their PvP-focused MMO: an entire expansion being released over the next few months as live events. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Michael Zenke Jan 27th 2009 at 9:00AM
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TNT's Leverage is 'For the Horde' I love Leverage. The show is appealing on a number of levels, but the producers obviously know the demographic one of its characters attracts. The man in the snazzy suit above is Aldis Hodge, playing the part of Alec Hardison - resident geek and computer/technology expert. And, apparently, a member of World of Warcraft's Horde. |
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The Lich King's casual decree: No geek left behind? Has Blizzard has adopted a "No Geek Left Behind" policy with WotLK? Has Blizzard made WoW so easy that it has diminished any real sense of risk, reward, or adventure? The casuals are left without any sense of awe inspired by the unattainable and the hardcores will burn through the content so quickly Blizzard may find it difficult to keep up with them. |
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The race to 80 in Wrath of the Lich King analyzed The dust has had time to settle over Azeroth since the launch of World of Warcraft's latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King, and most semi-active players who stick to a main character will probably have hit the new level cap of 80. |
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Behind the Curtain: What keeps you going? This week, I have been mostly killing Baron Rivendare. I'm now sitting with 65 kills under my belt, with no Deathcharger to show for it. We are not amused, and are now convinced that Blizzard hates us. Precious. Sss. |
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SOE unveils more on its free-to-play WoW Killer Join us as we talk about their Diablo-style combat, their deep pet system, the role of innovation in 'kiddie' games, and a bit about their extensive collections system. We'll even get a sense of when Beta for this novel project will begin! Read on through below the cut for the full details. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Michael Zenke Jan 20th 2009 at 9:00PM
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Azeroth shall not be contained to two dimensions Yes, that's right, now you too can wear goofy glasses in front of your PC monitor and feel as if the whole world of Azeroth is jumping out from the screen and into your computer room, all thanks to NVIDIA. |
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GamerDNA and Massively offer up Death Knight data goodness Back in October, we ran a couple of articles that gave you a snapshot of the kind of person who played the various classes in World of Warcraft. Now that the Death Knight class has been out for nearly three whole months, we figure the flavor of the month kids have had their turn at bat, and the real fans of the new class are settled in. |
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The Digital Continuum: Checking in with Warhammer Online It's been a while since Warhammer Online was released and in that time we've seen a lot of crazy stuff happen. Namely, Wrath of the Lich King launched, became the fastest selling PC game of all time and rocketed World of Warcraft into an even high number of subscriptions. |
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Know Your LotRO Lore: The Race of Man If you've been following along with Know Your LotRO Lore for the last few weeks, you're probably caught up with a basic understanding of how Middle-earth was created, and the origins of most of the Free Peoples. Now it's time to get educated on the race of Man in Middle-earth. Of course this term is not gender-specific, as it can refer to both male and female humankind. |
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First Impressions: Cartoon Network's Fusion Fall Cartoon Network's MMO, FusionFall, is definitely a strong first entry into the market. With the Cartoon Network stars as the basis for their IP, and many industry names involved in the project, the hopes have been high. The story is set in a future version of Cartoon Network's own variant of Earth, where the characters are now teenagers - and a bit more anime-styled than their counterparts we know from TV. The premise is that Planet Fusion, a big nasty greenish planet-devouring ball of space-muck run by a terribad guy named Fuse, has come to snack on our beloved home. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
by Michael Zenke Jan 14th 2009 at 1:00PM
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GamerDNA and Massively offer up Death Knight data goodness The sample for today's column is a little more than 500 people, all of whom were active WOW players before the launch, and now continue to actively play their Death Knight. "Actively" as measured by playing sessions – just having one of the new class in the character list isn't enough to count here. Read on to see how the Arthas' legions stack up! |
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'Beat World of Warcraft' a game developer resolution for 2009 GameDaily has put together a short piece titled "Game Developers Resolutions for 2009", which is essentially a look at the state of the industry and how they think it can improve. While the piece focuses on video games in general, it does fire a shot at the MMO industry specifically -- namely its dominance by one company, and one title. |
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Analyzing WoW's growth by the numbers When you get down to the nitty gritty numbers, World of Warcraft's growth has stayed fairly consistent over the last three years or so. This of course is after the initial boom in 2005, and thanks mostly to a continued schedule of expansions the last two years. But where will it go from here? |
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Class balance in a post-WotLK World of Warcraft Class balance is always a touchy subject, depending on the class a person plays. But WoWRIOT has put together an impressive look a class balance in a post-WotLK World of Warcraft. After looking through much of the post, we're pretty impressed with its accuracy and overall take on current class balance, especially as it pertains to arena and PvP. |
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World of Warcraft tops most played list of 2008 Nielsen Research has published its January through October numbers about the top 10 PC games and top 10 consoles by amount of time played. Once again World of Warcraft tops the charts. In fact, WoW has more time played than the other nine titles listed - combined. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Call to Arms: Deepwind Gorge | 6/14 - 6/17 |
| Call to Arms: Arathi Basin | 6/18 - 6/24 |
| Midsummer Fire Festival | 6/21 - 7/5 |
| Call to Arms: Strand of the Ancients | 6/25 - 6/27 |
| Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm | 6/28 - 7/1 |
| Call to Arms: Isle of Conquest | 7/2 - 7/4 |
| Call to Arms: Alterac Valley | 7/5 - 7/8 |
| Darkmoon Faire | 7/7 - 7/13 |
| Call to Arms: The Battle for Gilneas | 7/9 - 7/11 |
| Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch | 7/12 - 7/15 |
| Call to Arms: Twin Peaks | 7/16 - 7/18 |
| Call to Arms: Silvershard Mines | 7/23 - 7/25 |
| Call to Arms: Temple of Kotmogu | 7/30 - 8/1 |
| BlizzCon | 11/8 - 11/9 |
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