World of Warcraft To Test Using Real Money to Buy Experience Buffs

By Bixyl Shuftan

While World of Warcraft players have been busy with the Battle of the Barrens and other places, earlier this month there was some news that Blizzard would be testing out something never done before in the game - allowing players to gain experience faster by using real money purchases.

The buying of game items, or "micro-transactions," are not new to gaming, or even to WoW. Some smaller Internet games such as Evony allow players to purchase a variety of buffs, better equipment, etc. As these purchases give the buyer an advantage over free players, they are sometimes called "Pay to Win" games. Larger MMOs have tended to avoid such offers, not wanting to give loyal players who've gamed a long time the impression someone can just buy their way to the top and avoid the time and hard work in getting there. Instead some, WoW included, offer the sale of items that do not affect gameplay, such as mounts and pets.

In Summer 2011, Eve Online players protested plans to allow the purchase of items that would affect gameplay, and eventually the company relented. "It's one thing to add non-game items and make money off that," one reader wrote, "It's another entirely to screw up the whole game mechanics so that veteran players who've worked a year to get where they are get bumped by some snotnosed kid who's using Daddy's credit card to buy his way to the top."

Earlier this month, Blizzard forum moderators admitted to plans to "exploring" options after it was discovered there were plans for items to be sold at an "in game store," such as an "Enduring Elixir of Wisdom" that gave a 100% experience boost. The store will reportedly be only on Asian servers at first, and the item is described as currently only on test servers and only available to players level 85 or more.

The response from the players was mostly negative, "The item itself is mostly harmless … the problem is that it opens doors to (the) 'Pay to Win' model. And we already pay the game and a monthy fee just to skip that." Some stated they would leave the game, or feared others would if the In Game Store was released. Some stated they wouldn't mind the option to level other characters this way once a player had brought one up to the maximum Level 90 anyway.

This comes soon after some less than happy news for World of Warcraft. In May, Blizzard stated they had lost more than a million players in the first three months of the year, from 9.6 million n January 2013 to 8.3 million in March. While most of the losses were from Asia (where the in-game store will be tested), some Western gamers left as well. This continues a long-term drop from it's peak of 12 million in 2010, and the company admitted further decline was likely, "we expect to have fewer subscribers at year end than we do today." The reasons for the drop, players were leaving for cheaper games, notably those playable on mobile devices. The video game industry, in addition to virtual words such as Second Life, has been facing increased competition from handhelds such as tablets, iPods, and others.

At the time, Blizzard stated they would be investing more in WoW, with more storylines and features. Since then, the Darkspear Rebellion was introduced. But that even the largest of MMOs would resort to "dabbling in the darkest gold-producing alchemy of them all" of microtransactions allowing those with deeper pockets an edge over conventional players, this could be taken as a sign that even the people behind World of Warcraft are wondering if it won't be long before they no longer dominate online gaming.

Sources: Gamasutra, BBC News, Rock Paper Shotgun, Blizzard Forums,

Bixyl Shuftan

Game Review: Diablo 3

 

After Diablo 2 came out in the year 2000 along with its expansion, Blizzard the same company that created World of Warcraft kept promising that would create a sequel to Diablo 2. Year after year, Blizzard put it off until this year in May 2012 when they finally released it. My brother bought himself and me a copy to test it out.

 

Is it a good game? I’d say so yes, but it gets repetitive sometimes. For those not familiar with the Diablo series I can offer a quick synopsis for the third game in the series. The main goal is to defeat the Lord of Hell called Diablo. You choose from five character classes. A barbarian is a slashing warrior with high health and uses heavy armor. Another class is the wizard casting magical attacks. There’s an African witchdoctor shooting blow darts and summoning the undead to fight for him. A demon hunter who fights with a bow and arrow and uses nifty traps. The fifth character class is a monk who fights with marital arts and super natural physical attacks. 

 

This time around in the series, you are now able to choose the gender of your character. In the first and second game if you played a wizard, that character could only be one set gender. A man in the first game and a woman in the second game. In both the first and second Diablo a barbarian was always a man. Seemed kind of silly that if you wanted to play a wizard you could only play as a woman in the second game. Now both genders are available for every class in the third game. 

 

The game play is simple using your mouse you left click as your main attack and right as a secondary attack. To move your character around just left click and your character will move there. Your character gets to click and kill lots of zombies and horrible monsters in your way to gain experience and gold. Over time your character levels from one to a maximum level of sixty to become stronger. 

 

One nifty thing about Diablo 3, as you come across a new enemy you see a pop up on your screen saying "new lore." Click it and you’ll hear an actor’s voice describing the enemy monster to you. For example imps within the game are described to be small, but capable of tearing apart flesh with their needle teeth. Blizzard wanted to accomplish fantasy with a touch of horror and they do a good job of it.

 

When you pick a character you start out on your adventure going from town to dungeon progressing through the game in four acts each act taking you to a separate location. The fourth and final act you fight Diablo himself, beating the game ... or do you?

 

In Diablo one and two, there are three levels of difficulty Normal, Nightmare and Hell. When you defeat normal difficulty defeating Diablo at the end of the fourth act you are able to progress to the next difficulty level Nightmare, then Hell. Luckily you have the option of joining your fight against the demon Diablo with fellow players with a limit of four per group. The game gets harder the more people that are in a game or group together. So you can’t make the game easier by ganging up on the game. 

 

In Diablo 3 there’s a new difficulty called Inferno. In act 3 Hell I was killed a lot, later learning that you needed all resist gear to give you resistance to all elements. If you didn’t have gear like that, well I already knew what would happen. The elements you needed resistance to were fire, arcane, poison, and cold and electricity. Luckily a lady barbarian was nice enough to give me some gear that boosted my resist all. I finally got through to inferno with the correct gear. I was very happy when I defeated the end boss of the first act of Inferno called the butcher. When I defeated the butcher, a giant demon using hooks and floors of fire killing adventuring heroes, I unlocked a banner I wanted: a griffin icon for my banner.  (Yes I like griffins very much.) Something new in the Diablo series is that you get to create your own banner with various colors and sigils. Like a banner you would see with a medieval clan or house or king or queen. As you progress through the game earning achievements you earn various designs for your banner.

 

 However when I tried act two in Inferno I died fairly quickly despite the fair amount of all resist gear I had on my barbarian character. Blizzard did a good job of making Inferno beyond hard. Instead of blowing gold on repair bills I went back to act one in Inferno to earn gold to buy better equipment.

For those who played World of Warcraft, Blizzard carried over the auction house (called AH for short) over to Diablo 3. Compared to EBay, you can bid on new armor pieces for your character or a new shiny weapon to smite the demons of Hell. Like any RPG or Massively multiplayer online role-playing game or for short MMORPG. The player becomes more powerful by looking for or buying new equipment for his or her character in the game world. The game wouldn’t be much fun if you could only use the same equipment you started with throughout the whole game.

 

Diablo 3 does have an amazing amount of gear for each character to equip. For example a helmet or helm name could be something like a "masked aurora or a knight’s hunger." A dagger could be called a "grisly point" or a "death abyss." Or the dagger I currently have is a shiv revenge. One neat thing about weaponry is sometimes they come with element damage like poison or fire that add to the graphics and add to the damage you inflict per attack. Another neat thing is that sometimes when your character kills an enemy you see the enemy’s dead body fly across the screen as your character forces it back with the power of your attack. Also if you attack with a certain element it adds to the death of the enemy. Attacking with a poisoned weapon leaves the enemy as a diseased husk with a green sickly aura and poison cloud. Or a fire weapon leaves the enemy as a burning blackened husk.

The gear itself comes as a few colors. White is plain ordinary gear blue is step up offering some boosts. Yellow is a lot better than blue. Green is a set item that comes with 2 or more other items in the set. When you complete or add to the set you get additional bonuses. Orange is legendary and rarely found.

 

Some enemies by themselves die with graphical bravado. A demon in the fourth act burns dying and leaves behind a skeleton that blackens and turns to black ash. Another demon dies with its head and body erupting with its inner organs bursting through a large tear. The graphics are pretty amazing to the environments you fight in, or as explained before, the enemies dying. Also the magical attacks are neat to look at too. The wizard can blast away demons with a bright beam of magical doom on your screen. The witch doctor can attack with frogs or balls of fire.

 

For another challenging aspect within the game is the option of hardcore characters available when you reach level 10 of any character class. In the regular gameplay when you die you lose 10% or your gear’s durability which costs gold to repair at npc vendors. When you play as a hardcore character and you die you die like a real life death. No coming back end of your character game over. Before I wrote this article I tried a hardcore character for kicks. Poor Bubbles only made it to level 7 and is now unplayable as she died a horrible death by skeletons.

 

All in all I’d say Diablo 3 is a fun game to play. It can get repetitive fighting in the same dungeons again and again. The gameplay is fun though and with pretty graphics it’s still fun to play. What’s lacking though, and Blizzard might be working on this, is a pvp option (player vs. player). So you can test your might against fellow players instead of just the demons of Hell. Either way players new to Diablo and those who played Diablo 1 and 2 will still find this an entertaining and challenging game to play.

Grease Coakes

Meanwhile Back in Azeroth: Holidays and Updates

Recently, the massive multiplayer online game World of Warcraft made news with plan announced for the new expansion. In the meantime, the players have been going through holiday events from Azerothian versions of Halloween to Thanksgiving, plus the latest update in which they can take a trip to an amusement park island and finally face down the arch-villain of the current game.

October brought the “Brewfest” holiday, during which players sampled various brews and could help out by bringing fresh ale to the festival grounds and defend them against the jealous Dark Iron Dwarves. Later on was “Hallow’s End.” Previously, it was featured with the Horde’s burning of the Wickerman near the Undercity with the Alliance watching from their neaby town of Southshore, Horde stinkbomb pranks on Southshore and Alliance cleaning them up “with the power of pine,” and of course going from inn to inn for tricks or treats, which besides candy could get you a mask or a costume (there were hunters with bat pets ending up with bat costumes), or perhaps a trick and getting temporarily turned into a worm or black cat.

With the introduction of the Worgen and Southshore lost by the Alliance there were some changes to Hallow’s End, as well as additions. The Forsaken’s burning of the Wickerman was closer to the Undercity, just inside the walls of the ruins of Loredon. And the Gilneans held their own Wickerman burning just outside the gates of Stormwind. And both the Forsaken and Gilneians had witches to offer players the chance to drop stinkbombs on the other’s city, as well as offering quests to clean up the messes left by the other. There was also a quest to douse the fire on the opposing side’s Wickerman, though just venturing near would get you flagged for PvP combat. Needless to say, I only attempted this late at night when there were few opposition around.

There was also a special Hallow’s End questline. A man at a bar asks you to get a crate that was recently shipped over. Naturally it’s missing, and the character has to search for it. Along the way, you discover the crate is far from harmless. Once you find it, you have a choice, go ahead and give it to the man who hired you, or to someone else you met better prepared to handle it’s dangers?

And like before, there were the Headless Horseman quests. During Hallow’s End, his spirit terrorized several Horde and Alliance towns, setting them afire. Players have the task of teaming up to put them out and stop the specter. But to truly slay the Headless Horseman, one has to go to his grave in a Scarlet Monastery dungeon, draw him out, and smash his head. Among the possible drops by besting him, his spooky flying horse. And of course there was the treat or treating at inns, which got you candy and possible prizes, such as masks, and broom mounts that lasted until the end of the holiday.

In November was a dual event. The more notable part was the Thanksgiving holiday theme “Pilgrim’s Bounty." There were no changes from last year, so characters were still going from capital to capital with holiday foods to complete quests. The good part of this holiday, characters could advance their character’s cooking much more quickly than usual to expert levels. And the special stat bonuses from the food were a help in combat, that is, for those who took time away from the cooking to fight.

Also was the “WoW 7th Anniversary” Event. In previous anniversary events, the reward had been a special companion pet. Unfortunately for pet collectors, this was not the case this time. Instead, players got a packaged that when activated shot a firework in the air, and gave the player a temporary special tabard with “WoW” on it plus a 7% boost to experience and reputation gains. It was good for two weeks, ending on Dec. 3rd. While some liked the little bonus, others expressed disappointment there would be no lasting memento.

And after Pilgrim’s Bounty came to a close came Patch 4.3 for the game, also known as “Hour of Twilight.” It is here that the quests to defeat Deathwing, the main villain of the third expansion, finally arrive. This includes a special rouge’s quest line, which supposedly deals with a mid-ranked quest in the Badlands in which the player ends up with a dragons egg (note to any WoW player reading, you *did* keep that egg, didn’t you?) There are a number of others, eventually ending up with the players on the massive black dragon’s back to rip off his specially armored plates long enough for a superweapon to be fired at the weak spot.

But these quests are for the strongest characters. For those of all ranks, there is the new Darkmoon Faire. Before, the Faire was a traveling show that alternated between showing up near Goldshire or Thunderbluff every month. Now, the carnival workers have set up a portal that takes players to the new Darkmoon Faire Island. There, players can buy tokens to play games from ring toss to wack-a-gnall to target shooting in exchange for tickets. They can also take on daily quests (daily for as long as the faire lasts) to complete the games. There are also quests to help out some of the carnies, the rewards being tokens and five levels of experience for the profession involved in the quest. All six professions are involved, not just cooking and fishing. For yours truly trying to become an Illustrious Leatherworker, the Darkmoon quest linked to that provided a welcome shortcut.

The Faire first appeared in early December, up for a week. The Faire may be gone now, but it won’t be long for the Christmas holiday, Winter Veil.

For yours truly, as well as many other players, it’s been a year since playing the game in our new favorite characters, starting them when Cataclysm appeared and brought with it Worgen as playable. So far, I’ve gotten to Level 83, but wanting to experience lots of quests and work up my professions, plus get materials for the guild's larger bags, I still have yet to experience the new Cataclysm regions with my newer characters. Still having fun in the Sunweaver guild, set up by my Second Life friends on my home estate, and still having fun in Azeroth after all these years.

But not everyone who was playing World of Warcraft is sticking around. More on that later.

Picture Source: WoWHead

Bixyl Shuftan

Meanwhie, Back in Azeroth: "The Mists of Pandaria"

World of Warcraft, the most popular of the Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, has been in the news recently. A few days ago, it was for it’s Chuck Norris TV commercial. But before that, in October Blizzard announced their plans for the next expansion for their bestselling game: "The Mists of Pandaria.”

To begin with, a new PC race is introduced, the panda-like Pandaren. No this isn’t some “Kung Fu Panda” joke. Longtime players are probably familiar with the Pandaren Monk companions (most often seen in capital cities). As it turns out, they were originally created years ago as an April Fool’s gag. But the response was so popular, they were included in the Warcraft III game. Rumors of them soon to be introduced in World of Warcraft persisted for years, as well as rumors of complaints from China. But at Blizcon 2011 in October, the word was official.

The racial traits of Pandaren, at least according to current plans, include twice the stat benefits from foods, in addition to starting out with 15 points in the Cooking skill. Their rested experience will be twice as long as other players, and take 50% less damage when falling. The Pandaren’s background describes their homeland, Pandaria, as being secluded from the rest of Azeroth and its fighting. Beginning Pandaren PCs start out as among a group of explorers on the back of a giant turtle. The Pandaren are neither Horde or Alliance, but unaligned. After some time progressing, new Pandaren characters will need to choose which faction to support.

Pandaren were provided by Blizzard with an interesting background. Naturally, much of their in-game cultural background is based on that of China, with elements of Daoism and Tai-Chi used as inspiration. Much like the Tauren, they have a respect of Shamanism. Similar to the dwarves, they have a love of alcoholic beverages, brewmaking considered a revered tradition among them.

A new class of character is introduced as well: the Monk. They are available to all races except for the Worgen and Goblins. Monks have three specilizations: Brewmasters, which can take more damage, Mistweavers, which are healers, and Windwalkers, whom deal more melee damage. They can use staves and fist weapons, in addition to one handed maces, with Mistweavers being able to use off-hand items. They wear leather armor. They use a new resource bar, a Chi-bar, which is described as being similar to the Energy bar for Rogues.

The Talent system is being described as “entirely redone.” Talent trees are being replaced by being granted another specialization ability every few levels. Plus, every fifteen levels a talent point that can be spent on one of three talents. There will also be Challenge-Mode dungeons, requiring players to complete them in a certain time. There are also plans for Scenario battles, where players team up to accomplish a goal such as capturing or defending an area. Then there’s the “Pet Battle System,” which will do doubt get the attention of “Pokemon” fans. All those companion pets which are currently just for show will be able to fight and level, as well as able to be traded on the Auction House. As of now, Mists of Pandaria is planned to have nine new dungeons, and three new Raids. And players will be able to level up to Lvl 90, with adjustments to profession skills.

There is one change that will be a bit upsetting to some players. All classes are losing their secondary weapons, which means hunters lose their melee items (though will be able to shoot point-blank), and other clases lose their raged weapon slots, though warriors and rouges can throw their weapons, and casters can use wands in their main hand.

Blizzard got an enthusiastic response to news of the expansion at Blizcon. Since then, reactions have varied, as one can tell from the WoW forums. Joystik called the expansion an interesting move in new directions. They quoted game lead designer Dave Kosak, "What we're trying to do is find other ways to incorporate other playstyles into the game and give everybody something to do. ... We have this big, giant, incredible world -- what else can you do in it?"

But “Pandaren” and all its changes are about a year away most likely. Until then, WoWers still have some new content coming up, which we’ll be covering in our next article about World of Warcraft.

Images from Blizzard.
Other articles at PC World, Joystik, WoWWiki, ING

Bixyl Shuftan

Meanwhile, Back in Azeroth

Busy as I am in Second Life, I still find a little time in World of Warcraft. Especially since my residential area has it’s own guild there, in Lightbringer. Recently my namesake character finally reached Level 60, and with it a flying mount. Before “Cataclysm,” one would have to wait until Level 68, Cold Weather Flying wasn’t an option until Lvl 78, and only available at the city of Darlan deep in the interior of the continent of Northrend. And of course, you couldn’t fly in the “classic” continents of Kalimador and the Eastern Kingdoms.

Now, flight’s available just about everywhere, the exceptions being the starting Bloodelf and Draeani areas. For Northrend, the Cold Weather Flying skill is available at any flying trainer. The only problem is, for those near level 60 in Outland, and Levle 70 in Northrend, you need to be more careful where you land in certain areas. Touching down next to a foe several levels higher than you may not be a landing you can walk away from.

For a break in the questing, the Easter and Mothers’ Day events were an interesting diversion. For Easter there was Noblegarden, in which one gathered eggs hidden at the towns closest to capitals for the chocolates inside. There were also occasional goodies such as dresses and pet bunnies. The picture shows two Worgen girls from the Sunweaver guild munching on their candies.

Gather a number, and eventually one got turned into a bunny. Considering the wolflike Worgen player-characters are now involved, Noblegarden became a little more interesting. One of the achievements involved shaking a flower boquet at least one female of each player-character race. But with the neutral city of Darlan no longer the focus of the amount of traffic as it had before Cataclysm, finding girls of the opposing factions was a problem.

Some in the Sunweaver guild made Noblegarden into a social event, going to Azure Watch in the Draeani lands to get hidden eggs. Bu there were other ways. One of the Noble garden achievements is “Hard Boiled” in which one’s bunnified av lays an egg in the hot springs in the Un’Goro crater. In the Zangamarsh server, the “It Came From the Blog” guild, started by posters in the WoW Insiders newsblog, organized a “Hop to Hard Boiled.” In this spontaneous event, they and one other guild, and friends, didn’t fly but walked all the way from Razor Hill to the Un’Goro hot springs. They made this tape of the event, which is over an hour.



"The Hop to Hard Boiled"

Just after Noblegarden was Childrens’ Week. With the changes from Cataclysm, the Ogrimmar and Stormwind quests for the event were changed as well. The Stormwind ones included a motorcycle ride in Westfall, including a pass at the crater and its slimes, which got a little close for comfort for the kid. Horde players had their own wild ride quest in the form of “Ridin the Rocketway” in the Goblin area Azshara.

Until Cataclysm, the Alliance was seen as less diverse than the Horde by many, some Horde dismissing them as “Humans, hippies (Night Elves), and short guys.” With this in mind, one wonders if the Stormwind orphanage matron is having some mixed feelings about trusting her kids to these huge werewolves. The kids would probably think it’s cool, “Doggy!”

Besides the events, Blizzard has also released a new WoW character pet, the cenarion hatchling, available for ten dollars. The proceeds from the sales go to the tsunami relief effort in Japan. Also, an article from WoW insider suggests WoW’s subscription levels have fallen back down to pre-Cataclysm levels. But at 11.4 million subscribers, it’s numbers still make it the 800 pound gorilla of MMOs. There's been at least one suggestion that Blizzard should take this as a sign that it should offer a Free-to-Pay option besides the 10 Day Trial. But it seems most feel the people behind the game are feeling little pressure to do so.

On a final note, with my namesake character being a hunter, I should bring up some recent changes to combat pets. When I first played hunters, one had to keep one’s pet happy. If it got too unhappy, it could run away, especially if it was a new pet. Later on, Blizzard changed the game so they didn’t run away. This was seen by most as favorable, as it was one less thing to worry about. Unhappy pets still didn’t fight as well, so one needed to keep food on hand for the pet.

Now, the rules have been changed so that pets no longer get happy or unhappy, but just a level of content. Food is still handy as it heals damage on a pet. But still, not only does it remove the combat bonus the hunter’s pet gets from being happy, but from my point of view, it takes away from the experience of owning a pet, that it isn’t “just there” but needs occasional attention.

Well, that’s it for now from the wild world of Azeroth. Next holiday is the 4rth of July one, the Fire Festival, in which no doubt we’ll be seeing numerous guys and girls with maniacal grins as they chant “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

Sources: WoW Insider

Bixyl Shuftan

The “Cataclysm” Continues in Azeroth

This should be my last “Warcraft” article for a while. It’s not every day they make a major update. Though there have been a lot of changes here.

Besides the wolflike Worgen for the Alliance, Goblins are now available as player characters for the Horde side. Small and quick, they are higher in agility and intelligence, have a bonus in attack and casting speed, and those choosing alchemy as a profession start out at 15. From their gadgets, they’re able to do a Rocket Jump and Rocket Barage. And reflecting their background as moneymakers, are able to receive the best discount regardless of faction standing and able to call up access to their banks wherever they are.

The beginning quest chain for the Goblins explains how his/her cartel, the Bildgewater Cartel, got into the Horde. Instead of am unknown, the player starts out as an up and coming businessman/businesswoman on the cartel’s island city of Kazan. As you go about your business, including a ride on a hot rod, Deathwing, the main villain of the game expansion, shows up, and sets off the volcano. You gather your life savings (and then some), in order to get a seat on the Trade Prince’s yacht, but he double crosses you and makes you his slave. However, the ship gets caught in a storm and wrecked. So you get a chance to prove to your fellow Goblins you can be the hero who can get them out of their mess.

The beginning Goblin quest chain is longer than that of the Worgen's, the 100 Quests achievement reached along the way. But it’s packed full of chuckles as you face down funny-looking pygmies, “Oomie goomie goomie!”, who want to sacrifice your friends to their turtle god. Fortunately, you have your Goblin gadgets to get you through, from rocket boots to weed-wackers, but with little to no safety features, there’s always that chance something can go wrong. Along the way, you meet up with a group of Orcs, and everyone decides it’s best to cooperate in order to get off the island. You also run into the most well-known Orc, Warchief Thrall. Players who take up Goblin characters hear from him that he’s placing another Orc in charge of the Horde. This explains why Thrall’s nowhere to be seen in Orgrimmar these days.

But “Cataclysm” is much more than two new races available for play. Flight is now available in the “classic” continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, at least for those Level 60 and over. I’ve heard some wonder if this takes away from some of the experience, but most seem happy with it, the popular gathering places at Ogrimmar and Stormwind filled with flapping mounts as players happily show them off.

You’re going to need your flying license. New areas are now open in these two continents that would otherwise be inaccessible. New quests, monsters, and enemies await. These are more dangerous than previous areas, and your level cap has been raised to 85 to keep up. And with these new levels, new weapons and armor are available. Profession levels have also been raised from 450 to 525, the new rank of proficiency called “Illustrious Grand Master.” And with them, new materials to make high level armor, weapons, potions, etc.

And there’s a new Secondary Profession available, Archeology. Players go around Azeroth digging up artifacts at dig sites recently unearthed by the Cataclysm. After getting the skill from a trainer (the one in Stormwind named Harrison Jones, an obvious take on Indiana Jones), players go to dig sites, and survey them for archeology fragments. A survey site with a red light means you’re far away from your find. A yellow light a fair distance, and a green light means you’re close. One can gather fragments from a site three times, and then it closes while somewhere else on the continent another opens. Four dig sites are open at any one time, and contain artifacts from one of the races, such as Elven or Troll, or fossils.

Once enough fragments are gathered, then can be combined to make artifacts. Your first ones will be common and not worth much, such as common vases and trilobite fossils, . But as you continue to come across artifacts, more valuable ones will appear. Finding fragments will level your Archeology skill for a while, but eventually you level just by combining them into artifacts. But finding the fragments will still get you experience points, which can help out characters that haven’t quite reached Level 80 yet.

While a way to enjoy WoW between questing, some players have their doubts on how valuable this profession is. One guide I came across suggested truly epic items were few and far between. But as a Worgen I saw one Alliance character on a fossilized skeleton mount. A prize from archeology? Maybe.

Another new feature is guild advancement. Guilds can advance with 25 levels of progression, done through the accomplishments of it’s individual players through quests, battleground victories, etc. Each new level brings perks, such as bonus experience from quests and clobbering monsters, faster mount speeds, etc. There are two new Player vs Player battlegrounds, Twin Peaks and Gilneas.

And of course there are the jokes. The Worgen and Goblins have their own special jokes, such as “Since the change, I prefer my meat rare,” and, “When in doubt, blow it up.” Perhaps it’s the perception of this player, but the game designers seem to be getting a little brave on occasion with the humor. One of the female Goblin jokes is a vieled bondage crack, and in one of the lady Worgen jokes, a supposed listener confuses what she actually means by a “bone.” The slightly riskee humor continues to the new quests, in one the player delivering a shipment of crab meat to a lady sailor and being told a subtle STD joke. And it's not just the jokes where the off-color remarks appear. In one of the new low-level quests, the new Orc Warchief insults the Undead queen by calling her a rhymes-with-witch. Blizzard must think their audience is getting older.

Some are probably asking “why just raise the new top level to 85 instead of 90?” Despite being around for several years, World of Warcraft is still successfully at keeping a large audience, and will probably remain so for some time as long as Blizzard continues to be good at giving the players a great game. Someone thought they would keep their lead for at least 20 years. Most likely it won't be that long (in my opinion), but although some people still talk about a potential “WoW killer,” more game developers admit Warcraft will not be going away anytime soon. Instead of being knocked off it’s number one spot by a new hot game, most likely it’s position will be chipped away over time as players’ tastes change and new technical developments allow for stunning new games.

And of course some players would prefer to be in a smaller game where they can meet up with the administrators and content developers, and maybe even contribute to developing in the tools of the game, such as the roleplays and combat RPs in Second Life.

World of Warcraft may be the McDonalds of online games, to paraphrase Eurogamer writer Robert Purchase, but most would prefer to dine elsewhere on occasion as well, and some never get a taste for it to begin with.

Sources: WoWwiki, Eurogamer,net, Massively

Bixyl Shuftan