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Blizzard: Next MMO Cool, Different, and Still A Ways Off

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:16:42 -0600

Wrath of the Lich King may barely be ripe for the picking, but Blizzard's already hard at work on its next attempt at supplanting real life. Blizzard COO Paul Sams recent spoke with VG247 about the second generation of its MMO monarchy, and long-time WoW players will be both happy and relieved to hear that this game certainly isn't WoW 2.0.

“We want to create a great game,” Sams said. “Something that’s cool, and new, and different, and kind of next generation in terms of look and feel and gameplay. That’s a challenging endeavour.”

But as a dab of disappointment for WoW players' flagon of infinite joy, the new Blizzard MMO is still deep in the grimy pits of development, with no release date in sight.

“We’re definitely at the beginning, in the first half of development,” Sams continued.

“When we’re building a new game from the ground up, what happens is that it’s slow going for the first bit, while the team goes round and round and round figuring out how it’s going to look and feel, what the player experience is and what the differentiators are, and then the speed at which we then bring in the content and polish and actually get to the finish line…"

"I think the second half of the process is always substantially faster than the first half of product development,” he added.

As for why we can't get an eyeful of Blizzard's work while it's still firmly on the vine, Sams explained:

"The last thing we want to do is say, ‘Hey we’re doing this,’ and everyone says, ‘Oh cool,’ and then we change things completely. We want to have a level of confidence that the direction we’re going in the right one, and that it’s polished enough to be able to show something, also. And we’re not in either of those places yet.”

As long as there's gold to farm and a title to which one can feasibly affix the word "crack," though, we're sure everything will turn out ok. Well, aside from our social, family, mental, and work lives.

Blizzard: "Well Over Half" of Players Who Deserted WoW For Warhammer Are Already Back

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:38:19 -0500

Well, that was quick. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Blizzard COO Paul Sams claimed that Warhammer Online was no 18-hour raid boss. The battle's over, and the spoils of waaaagh clutter Blizzard's side of the field.

"The good news is that we've seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving - they've already returned," Sams said over the deafening roars of BlizzCon.

But, regardless of whether the game's a direct competitor or merely Led Zep to Blizzard's Beatles, Sams handed out Warhammer Online's participation ribbon with an air of humility -- hedging his bets on the MMO's future success.

"I think Warhammer is best positioned to succeed out of the various products that have come out thus far since World of Warcraft has come out. It seems to be a good game, certainly a great company, Mythic and Mark [Jacobs] over there and his team, they're very, very talented," he explained.

"But I think without EA they would have struggled as well, because EA fortunately for them has a lot of money and so they were able to put forward a lot of marketing dollars and were able to support the huge infrastructure that they require for these kinds of games. It's a tough road and as I said, if we had not had the benefits of the trust of our customers because of the years of delivering for them, I think that we could have been in trouble a few times. There have been big challenges and mistakes that we've made and we've been fortunate enough to get by them."

So MPC readers, who's pocketing your subscription money at the end of each month? WoW or WAR?

Both? Don't go down that road, folks. It's a slippery slope.

The Most Amazing Open-Source (or Freeware) Apps You've Never Seen Before!

David Murphy — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:30:18 -0500

Today's batch of awesome open-source (or freeware) applications centers on a single word: wow. No, they don't help you level up in that MMO. We're going to show you a batch of free programs whose features are cool enough to make your jaw hit the floor, a small puddle of drool to escape from your lips and into your keyboard, and your twitter to light up with all messages you'll be sending your friends about these must-have applications.

We're serious. Prepare to be amazed. But if you haven't checked out the twenty other themed applications we've hit up in our last four open-source updates, now's the time to fill in the backstory! Once you're ready for greatness, continue on with our list. And be sure to get your bib on standby.

Synergy

If you've been reading Maximum PC, you know exactly what Synergy does and why we must have this on our list of "wow!" applications. But we'll break it down for those new to the scene. Synergy links two computers together--two computers to a single mouse and keyboard, that is. Your mouse travels across the screens of the two PCs (or notebooks) as if you were using the displays in a dual-monitor configuration. Synergy also unifies the clipboard between the two devices and, geekier still, synchronizes the screensavers. This application is the program you need to have running if you use two computers in close proximity to each other, period.

Download Synergy here!

Jing

If you're like us, the prospect of using the Print Screen button to capture your display's contents, pasting it into an open-source graphics editing program, and cropping the huge screen image to the appropriate size is maddening. Jing solves this tedium by simplifying the art of screen capturing and recording to the extreme. Its user interface is perfect, in that the program highlights different areas of your desktop depending on where you hover you mouse. Pick a window, draw out a cropped box, and presto -- instant screenshot. As we mentioned, you can record videos of your desktop as well. This turns Jing into a one-stop shop for all your computer capturing--activities that would normally require a few separate programs.

Download Jing here!

Revo Uninstaller

Revo Uninstaller is better than most of the uninstallation utilities that come with your favorite programs. Not only does it perform the same basic functions as these, but it goes one important step further. The application scans your drive for any leftover files that typical uninstallation programs overlook (or ignore). It gives you the option to nuke these out of existence (we often spring for this), cementing Revo Uninstallers place as one of our favorite drive clean-up applications. But that's not all. Revo Uninstaller also packs a junk-file scanner and startup manager into its treasure trove of file management, as well as a file shredder-like feature which overwrites your deleted files past the point of recovery. It's a one-stop shop for eliminating clutter, and we'll turn to it every time we need to say a fateful farewell to an application or game.

Download Revo Uninstaller here!

Launchy

Size isn't everything, and Launchy is the perfect example of a program that's miniscule in format, but essential in its functionality. With the simple tap of an alt+enter combination on your keyboard, the application pops up. The only thing you have to do is type in what you want to do next. Want to load Photoshop? Start typing. Want to fire up Firefox? Write it out. Feel like heading over to Youtube? Type that into the input box. It's that easy. Launchy excels at what it does: launching stuff. We'd rather type in four letters than have to navigate through the start bar each time we want to run an applicaiton. This, and the program's seemingly limitless customization options, put Launchy high on our list of must-haves for any PC environment. ...even if this idea was seemingly "borrowed" from an Apple OS. Wink.

Download Launchy here!

Xbmc

(click the picture to hit up Xbmc's official Flickr site!)

Xbmc, formerly known as Xbox Media Center, is a powerful application for streaming video content from one PC (or Mac, or Linux box) to another connected device. Its interface is absolutely gorgeous, but even if you don't agree with us, you can always skin it to whatever you want. The application supports a ton of video formats, which is nice. We like the application's comprehensive plug-ins even more--just describing all the tricks that external developers have coded into Xbmc would be an article in itself. If you've been a fan of Tversity and MythTV, you owe it to yourself to check out Xbmc. And if you have no idea what those two programs even do, don't fret. Grab this application and prepare thyself for a whole new world of media interactivity.

Download Xbmc here!

Got any favorite apps that we didn't mention? Post them in the comments section below!

Botting in MMOs Suffers a Setback

Chris Moody — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:31:49 -0500

Blizzard has won a summary judgment against the World of Warcraft bot maker MDY (the folks that brought you WowGlider, now MMOGlider) based on copyright grounds. The judge also decided that liability for contributory copyright infringement and tortious interference is off the table and won’t go to the jury at trial. This is a victory for Blizzard and a setback for MDY, which brought the action.

Botting has been common in MMO games from almost the beginning and developers have tried varying amounts of pressure to stop the practice. It causes headaches to developers trying to manage an ‘economy’ within their games and discourages players who want to play within the game's frame work and rules. Players have used it as a method to get ahead in MMOs and even turned it into real money by selling virtual items and characters made in this fashion for real money.

This is starting to sound bad for MDY. Who do you think is in the right? MDY, or Blizzard? The final ruling could have an effect felt across many MMOs.

(Image Credit: flickr.com Veronica Belmont)

Gurgle, Garlge! Talking Plush Murloc to Be This Year's Tickle Me Elmo (for Gamers)

Paul Lilly — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:51:18 -0500

Come September 30th, neglected significant others will have another item to add to their geek gift list for that special WoW-obsessed someone in their life: A talking plus Murloc. The doll will be sold through Play.com for £25, or roughly 31.5 Euros (almost $50) after shipping for U.S. gamers, and you can already put in your pre-order. Exactly what the amphibious, fish-like humanoid bipedal will spurt out isn't yet known, nor will it ever be known as he gurgles out phrases in Nerglish.

If you really want to go for the double-whammy this holiday shopping season, compliment the gift wrapped Murloc by stuffing a Blizzard Authenticator Dongle into his stocking. Hey, it's better than the alternative.

Update (8/20/08)

Credit goes to gaming enthusiast Bamatick for "inventing" the plush Murloc, who has released his design to the public free of charge.The legality of selling plush Murlocs remains very much in question, a point which Bamatick acknowledges and warns against doing:

"I would love to spend 16 hours hand-sewing each plush murloc for the 100,000 or so of you who expressed a desire to have such, the cost would be prohibitive. Especially considering that I can't sell them, even at no profit. So, I have decided to go the GNU/Linux route and offer my pattern up for open 'source.'[...]I wanted to use this project as a positive for the gaming community."

You can grab the open source pattern here.

Image Credit: Play.com

Blizzard Offers Additional Layer of Security with Authenticator Dongle

Paul Lilly — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:59:42 -0500

With over a trillion-quantillion subscribers, World of Warcraft players are finding themselves increasingly popular targets for hackers, and nothing stings worse than logging in to Azeroth only to find your character standing in nothing but his scivvies and all his belongs wiped out. All that time spent acquiring digital doodads and neglecting your family, friends, pets, hygiene, job, and other real-life obligations down the drain.

Such scenarios are becoming far too common, and Blizzards offering WoW residents another way to beat back the bad guys, and it won't cost you any mana. Instead, for $6.50 (that's USD, a form of paper and coin currency used in non-virtual landscapes) you can protect your account with Blizzard's Authenticator dongle. Once linked to your account, the dongle generates a one-time six-digit passcode at the press of button to supplement your regular account password. And because the dongle stays separate from your PC, it's impervious to keyloggers and other similar malware.

Anyone plan on picking one of these up?

Image Credit: Blizzard

1d6 of New Dungeons and Dragons Apps!

David Murphy — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:02:45 -0500

I had the distinct, geeky pleasure of reliving my dice-hucking days earlier today, only it wasn't quite as I remembered it. Back in high school (two years ago, right Will?), I used to traverse the ol' imaginary Forgotten Realms campaign setting with a few of my neighborhood friends. Yes, that's right. We played Dungeons and Dragons. And even back then, I was on the cutting edge of technology in a pencil-and-paper universe.

When I joined my group, I was given a bootleg (ie: burned) copy of the fabled Dungeons and Dragons Core Rules program. Firing it up for the first time was akin to little Drakh the Mage acquiring a Staff of Power. Inside the application were rules--glorious rules--for a proverbial crap-ton of D&D books and settings. But these were just the potatoes. The real meat of the application lay in its character generation program, a super-integrated designer that allowed you to roll up new characters in at least one-fourth of the time it would normally take you by hand. You could save your characters and pull them back up after each tabletop romp, adding in your latest loot and re-tweaking your character's new powers and skills with each level up. In short, the Core Rules became a staple of my nerd life, and I had forever longed for an updated version that used Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition rules overtop the program's awesome old-school interface.

Wizards released a demo of a Third Edition application by the time I stopped playing D&D. It only figures, then, that the company is launching more applications with the impending June release of the Fourth Edition ruleset. Only this time, you're not just getting a character builder--you're getting a suite!

D&D Insider

I chatted with the Wizards team about the background for Dungeons and Dragons Insider, the name they've assigned the to-be-released chunk of applications. They're noticing a distinct pattern in their audience. Namely, while hardcore D&D enthusiasts may sometimes dress up like Peter Pan, it's only an illusion. These stereotypically basement-dwelling folk are growing up, and a new generation is replacing them as D&D's core player base. And they aren't used to pen-and-paper games, nor do they consider "grabbing a ton of books and sitting down for hours" as "gaming." To them, hopping online and clicking the mouse for hours is what a true gamer does, and the release of D&D Insider looks to capture that fact.

Well, even though Neverwinter Nights did it first. But I digress.

The Character Generator

The Wizards team showed off three different applications today. First up is the Character Generator, a combination of tabletop roleplaying and America's Next Top Model. It's the end-all-be-all of fantasy fashion. And it bows to no ruleset. You create a character based on one of the core Dungeons and Dragons races (sorry, Planescape fans: no Githzerai for you) and play dress-up however you see fit. Assign your character different types and colors of armor, even armor from a different race if you want. You can select all sorts of weapons to equip, clothes to wear, the particular stance you want your character to have, et cetera. When you're done, you can export the character as desktop wallpaper (with a customizable background, of course), as a headshot graphic, as a printable token for a tabletop game, or even as representation in D&D Insider's Game Table--we'll get to this in a bit.

One note: this character generator is completely independent from anything you do in your adventures. D&D Insider isn't Neverwinter Nights in that regard: the loot you pick up during your campaigns is yours to keep track of. And if you feel the need to update your character's avatar with a reflection of what he or she now wields, you'll have to go in and do that manually. Likewise with whatever loot or cash your character picks up whilst slaying evil (or good).

The second half of the Character Generator but replaces all the pretty elements with cold-hard statistics. It's the very embodiment of the Core Rules application I mentioned earlier, where you let the trusty computer help you create your character sheet. Anyone who's ever played a role-playing game based on the D&D system should recognize this one. Pick your race, class, skills, feats, et cetera. The application links a great deal of detail from the 4E Player's Handbook so you can see exactly what you're doing and the ramifications thereof--perfect for newbies who have no understanding of the subtle differences between, say, a Mage and a Sorcerer. Similar to my experiences before, the application keeps perfect track of your character, including any fudging you may have done. If you decide to assign 25s to all of your stats, that's your prerogative. The program also marks your character as operating under "house rules," which will prevent you from running Dave the Asskicker in any official RPGA online tournaments.

The Dungeon Builder

Application number two is D&D Insider's Dungeon Builder. This one will be launched as a free downloadable application as well, giving you access to a tile-based 2D map creator. Operating the program is pretty easy. You simply drag and drop different art elements to create digital versions of the top-down maps that most D&D players are quite familiar with from their pen-and-paper days. If you need to take an element off-grid--say, to make a big cavern--you can just select the handy drawing tool and freehand it in yourself. Ta-da. The program is as basic as map creation gets, but the added bonus is that you can transfer your maps into a rendered, 3D environment with...

The Game Table

Game Table! It's the third and final application in the suite that brings the entire package under one roof. It's also the means by which players hop online and join or host D&D adventures. For the DM, this means using a map from Dungeon Builder (or a prebuilt campaign) and populating it with miniature monsters, lighting effects, and other wicked customization options. You also get a suite of tools to make your online adventuring easier (and cheat-free), including a dice roll utility and an initiative tracker. In essence, Game Table recreates a miniatures game in a digital format. As a player, you move your character in a fog-of-war setting, discovering traps, loot, and monsters exactly when your player normally would--as decided by the DM, of course. The rotating 3D environment isn't built with hard rules in mind, allowing for complete and total D&D-style customization for whatever situation is taking place.

Absent from the mix is any way for you to edit the parameters of the players or monsters themselves, attributes like size, thickness, or unique identifying factors. Truly, it's like a miniature campaign. If the third Orc from the left is holding a giant bloody scythe, well, you'll just have to pretend that Generic Orc #3 in the digital dungeon is indeed doing that. Which will be helped, in part, by Game Table's build-in voice chat.

The Stunning Conclusion

Well, that's it! Minus one critical detail--access to these applications will be on a limited version for free users. If you want the total experience, you're going to have to pony up some cash. Wizards hasn't set the final price of the services yet, but they're looking in the range of what one would typically pay for an awesome MMO: $10 to $15 monthly. Yes, that's right. Monthly.

It's a hard pill to swallow, so before I choked, I asked the assembled Wizards team what would prevent me from finding a similar, if not better roleplaying experience from a free Neverwinter Nights campaign. Or, for that matter, jumping ship to an MMO that offers a greater content and player base. Remember, Dungeons and Dragons is a powerful name, but even all of its glorious, geeky history can't save a product that's ill-thought-out or poorly designed. Their answer? D&D Insider presents a product that's more integrated with the 4E rule system than any "variant" experience out there, and it will allow Wizards to achieve faster updates and tighter control of Dungeons and Dragons than ever before. Throw in official tournaments and a user-created-content database (a post-launch idea), and they believe that the monthly fee is but a drop in the bucket, comparable to what one would otherwise spend each month on campaigns from the ol' comic store.

We'll all find out soon enough whether D&D Insider is a Critical Hit or Miss -- the first of the applications will premiere with the June 6 release of the new Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide. Start polishing your dice, be they real or virtual...

Trying to Avoid WoW... and Failing

<a href="/david_murphy">David Murphy</a> — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:43:52 -0500

I, like about 8 or so million other people worldwide, have a fever. And the only cure is more World of Warcraft, or so I thought.

For a long time, I was one of the devout -- the addicted, if you will. I distinctly remember buying the game on its November 23, 2004 release date, and logging into (or at least, trying to) the packed, day-one servers. It took me about half an hour to decide on my first character choice, a painful decision that most fans of the genre can surely attest to. Picking a class that matches one's playing style can be an agonizing experience at first, and the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck playing through the game's "newb zones" ad nauseum.

Drakh the mighty human Paladin was born shortly in the evening of the 23rd on the PvP-friendly realm of Kil'Jaeden. And for the most part, life was grand. As I tended to keep odd and/or busy hours in college, I found that playing as a Paladin allowed me to solo a lot of the game's non-party-necessary content, and when I needed to rely on others, I made for a half-decent healer.

Paladins, for the uninitiated, are the half-healing/half-tanks of the game -- you can absorb a good deal of damage and hold out for a decent bit of time against most enemies, provided you make good use of your fancy little abilities. And while they do heal, they're hardly as effective as the game's Priest class. Then again, healing priests can't really do that much attacking damage, et cetera. Balance, balance, balance.

Anyway, as I mentioned, life in the virtual world was pretty grand. Little Drakh made it through his baby years with not much trouble, and chugged all the way to a mighty level 47 before he felt like busting Horde heads instead of an endless barrage of computer-controlled critters. Alas, this was to be my undoing, as I quickly learned a tragic fact of Paladin Life while on the PvP battlegrounds: they suck. Or, rather, their hybrid nature makes it tough to be a truly effective killing machine when compared to the other classes. Sure, you can heal... a little. Or you can stun enemies... once every five minutes. Or you can whack them with your hammer... which does hardly as much damage as a few Rogue backstabs, et cetera. In short, I found that they were too "jack of all trades" for my liking, which in my MMORPG mindset, is a character's death sentence.

About a week after he began PvPing, Drakh was no more; that version, at least. For in his place came Drakh #2 -- same name, mind you, but different character. While I'm normally inclined to magic-tossing classes in most RPGs I play, I felt like being totally different this time around, as WoW fatigue was starting to slightly set in and I needed something fresh to keep me entertained. Hence Drakh the Rogue -- a stealthy assassin that made me cackle with glee every time I stumbled across some poor horde Mage soloing in the wild. Easy meat.

I took that guy all the way to 60, but since no guild ever needs rogues, I was only able to burn through the "typical" endgame content. Alas, 40-man raids were not going to be in my future. It was frustrating, and my general feelings of cyber-inadequacy were compounded by my increasingly busy school schedule. And social life, or lack thereof; it's hard to go out when you're running one instance a night. I ended up quitting WoW in early 2006, as the endgame simply required more time than I had available to contribute. And if I wasn't playing 25+ hours a week, why bother paying $15 a month just for the occasional Battlegrounds visit?

Ever since WoW's expansion came out, I've been fighting the urge to jump back into the game again. The thought of new content -- flying mounts?! -- is just too tempting. Too tempting. And I must confess, the (far-away) dream of going toe-to-toe with Illidan is simply too awesome to pass up. And new battlegrounds? And world PvP? Hmm.

I still worry that the game hasn't changed much since I last left it: that endgame content is still dominated by the power guilds who aren't LFM, that certain classes are virtually worthless in said endgame, and that, as before, I'll have to give up my crazy Californian social life just to experience all the joys of a... virtual... world. And we know how I feel about that. And this is going to sound purely selfish, but part of me still can't get over the selling-of-all-the-items, delete-the-character experience from when I quit. Yes, I know, I should have just kept him going on Blizzard's servers. I'm a damn fool, but I was also assuming that I'd never, never, never jump into Azeroth ever again. Might as well play nice, sell the stuff, and donate it to the guild bank, right?

I feel like I'm in a bit of a lull right now, games-wise. Aside from the week or so I spent beating C&C3, there just isn't really anything out there right now that I'm dead-set on playing. Yes, there's always Guitar Hero, but one's wrist can only take so much daily punishment. Jumping into WoW might be the best possible decision for me right now, but it's a tough decision -- playing an MMO tends to sap one's time (and interest) for playing other games, depending on your level of obsession. I just worry that I'll get hooked again and have very little to show for it a year down the line, save for another deleted account.

Is WoW the ticket, or should I look elsewhere for my multiplayer gaming fix? I suppose I could always wait for Warhammer...