Warcraft on SWiK

Video Game Addiction - Mahalo

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:31:03 -0700

Tom’s Games: Expert: 40 Percent of World of Warcraft Players Addicted CBS News: Detox For Video Game Addiction? .

http://www.mahalo.com/Video_Game_Addiction

World of Warcraft Addiction: Blizzard officially consider mobile ...

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:28:15 -0700

i love the game but im alway going places i hope it comes out moble.i promise ill … Chinese World Of Warcraft (WoW): really crazy video

http://www.product-reviews.net/.../world-of-warcraft-addiction-blizzard-officially-consider-mobile-version-of-wow/

ADHD & Video Games: The Positive and The Addiction

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:11:22 -0700

Lots of parents of children with ADHD are. And now, here’s a simple way, according to one study, that is. Let them enjoy those playing those video games now and then.

http://www.addadhdblog.com/category/adhd-video-games/

Download GG-Client software for warcraft dota

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:07:39 -0700

Download GG Client Software for Warcraft DOTA. now! and enjoy the experience.

MaNGOS community forums (Powered by Invision Power Board)

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:56:35 -0700

Why The MMORPG Subscription-Based Business Model Is Broken

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:05:49 -0700

Famed game developer and analyst Scott Jennings recently announced on his blog that he’s quit online game publishing giant NCSoft to join John Galt Games. His new home is the small casual game startup developing Web Wars, a sci-fi game played via a browser plug-in, where web sites themselves are territories to fight over. (Sort of RocketOn meets battle cruisers.) The move is a bit like a top Hollywood producer quitting the movie business for an obscure online-video startup; it’s such a big jump, you want to know why.

Known by gamers as “Lum the Mad,” Jennings is practically synonymous with the subscriber-driven MMORPGs that major game publishers still largely favor over free, web-based virtual worlds. But now Jennings says that business model is broken — “an arms race that few can even hope to compete in, much less win,” he says.

To fix the online gaming model, Jennings said some innovative thinking is required. “Embracing open source development, crowd-sourcing content, targeting different platforms such as the Web or mobile phones, all of these are valid,” he suggested. With few exceptions, however, game publishers have been unwilling to take risks. “They aren’t responding to the changing market because they don’t understand how to work things like web technologies into their current income models,” he said. “So instead they keep doing the same things– just more of them, and with higher budgets.”

Jennings points to the ballooning costs of MMORPGs — World of Warcraft is estimated to have cost $40 million to $50 million to develop, and while Age of Conan cost just $25 million, the game is having retention issues, largely because the budget wasn’t big enough, he says. By contrast, he notes, small companies produce low-budget web-based MMOs like Club Penguin and RuneScape that post far higher profits.

So with Jennings making the jump, I suspect we’ll see more developers following his lead. Especially if publishers refuse to evolve.

Image credit: www.webwars.com.

Real World of Warcraft: Is Offline Part of the Plan?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:53:32 -0700

Dense games are fun games. Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game developers give solo players things to do, but for a game to really succeed players need people to play with. If player density isn’t high enough, you have to condense things, as once-great FPS/MMO Planetside did earlier this year.

Blizzard’s World of Warcraft is a juggernaut with 10 million players scattered across hundreds of servers — 226 copies of Azeroth in the U.S. alone — and a relatively low churn rate. Those players make for a good game few others can match: Hang out in the online city of Shattrath, or at the mouth of an instance, and you’ll soon find others with whom to raid.

Could Blizzard be looking to move all that action into the real world?

Real-world games have been tried before. Population density has always been one of their biggest challenges. The gaming might be good in Shattrath, but go to Times Square and you’re alone. Can Warcraft’s loyal followers help it make the first big real-world MMO?

Blizzard is in the rare company of firms like Apple and Google that make their own gravy — in other words, they’re able to generate a ton of buzz without traditional marketing. So when the firm started recruiting for an “unannounced online multiplayer game,” the speculation was immediate.

The World of Warcraft universe had its Big Bang 14 years ago with the release of a desktop RTS game called Warcraft; the Starcraft and Diablo franchises soon followed, each with its own universe, backstory, and global success. Given how well the the Warcraft franchise fared online, much of the speculation looked at MMOs set in these other universes.

Of course, Blizzard’s not talking. The company is notoriously tight-lipped about its plans, and steadfastly refuses to publish any game before it’s ready — a practice which has served it well and has even resulted in the cancellation of highly anticipated titles when they weren’t quite right.

Gaming analyst firm DFC thinks 2008 is a banner year for MMOs, and expects much less growth in coming years — a sure sign of market saturation. With new MMO titles like Conan crowding store shelves, maybe it’s time for Blizzard to change the game by moving it offline.

The pieces are definitely in place:

The density problem is solved: With Warcraft’s huge installed base, there’s probably a Rogue Night Elf within a hundred meters of you right now.
People are always connected: Blizzard has thrived overseas. Starcraft is so popular in Korea, it’s the subject of TV shows, contests — even standup routines. In many of these countries, cell phone use far outranks what we’re used to in North America. Worldwide, the majority of Internet-enabled devices are cell phones, not PCs. Game developers can rely on a mobile, connected player base.
We have our controllers: These mobile devices can access the Internet, have rich audiovisual displays, and know where they are. That’s key for everything from quests to face-to-face real-world combat. Heck, with clever use of accelerometers and screen gestures, your iPhone could double as a sword as easily as any Wiimote.
There’s stuff to do: Wonder about geographic quests? Geocaching, which involves finding caches at specific locations, is a popular sport among GPS enthusiasts, with 613,734 caches active worldwide at the time of writing.
We’re used to constant interactions: Facebook, instant messaging, and Twitter have taught an entire generation (or two) to deal with constant interruptions from a global social network. And casual gaming, which has been a part of the workday since Minesweeper, is now big business.

A real-world MMO has one more advantage: Revenues. The opportunities for sponsorship, or for driving players to real-world locations to make real-world purchases, make Blizzard’s current revenues look tiny by comparison.

All we need is the players. And Blizzard’s the most likely company to let the Orcs loose in Times Square.

If this story interests you, check out our upcoming conference:
Mobilize — Mobile Web Today and Tomorrow

World of Warcraft CD Key

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:29:12 -0700

World of Warcraft CD Key

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:28:13 -0700

http://www.item4u.com/bestSelling-CDKey/WoW-EU-CDKey

RuneScape Moves to Come Out of the Shadows

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:47:00 -0700

RuneScape is one of online gaming’s biggest success stories, but unless you play it or know someone who does, you’ve probably never heard of it. Launched in 2001 by Jagex Software, an independent studio based in the UK, it’s a traditional fantasy role-playing game that boasts six million active monthly players, almost all of them in the English-speaking world — making RuneScape more popular in the West than World of Warcraft. (Over half of WoW’s 10 million players are based in Asia.) Do a Google trend comparison of RuneScape to World of Warcraft and Age of Conan, the latest MMORPG darling, and you’ll see that the web traffic of Jagex’s indie title outstrips both of them. Despite all this, it’s received comparatively little coverage, even by the gaming press.

That may change soon, because this week Jagex will make its first appearance at one of gaming’s biggest trade shows — the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles — where it will debut a graphically upgraded version of the game called RuneScape High Detail. Ahead of the launch, I sat down with the Jagex team last week to find out how, with so little attention, the modest-looking RuneScape has attracted so many players.

Originally created by Andrew Gower and his brother Paul while Andrew was still an undergrad at Cambridge, RuneScape runs on Java, making it accessible to anyone who can get on the web. It’s also free, though 60 percent of the world’s content is restricted until you upgrade to a $5 monthly subscription, which some one million RuneScape players currently pay. And while even RuneScape High Detail won’t win Jagex any graphics awards, the developers have compensated by creating a game world with depth and variety of play. “In terms of gameplay,” influential game developer Raph Koster notes, “RuneScape is a very worldy world, offering a diverse array of activities that frankly, resembles Ultima Online.” (Koster was that classic game’s lead designer.) At the same time, the Java code makes it easy to add new features and make quick fixes. As Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison noted to me, “The beauty of Java is it’s platform independent.”

The result? Tremendous viral growth, especially from very young gamers on a limited budget. Jagex won’t give out specific numbers, but Iddison told me their greatest expense is payroll for 400 employees; he also said their profit margin is well over 50 percent.

More details on Jagex/RuneScape:

- New content (questions, items, etc.) added to RuneScape every two weeks
- 1.2 megabyte Java app
- Peak concurrency: 250,000
- Average player time: 12.5 hours/week
- RuneScape is a sharded MMORPG (i.e. copies of the world run on separate servers)
- 250 RuneScape shards for up to 2,000 players each. Unlike many MMORPGs, player characters are not bound to a single shard.
- 200 servers total
- Main player demographics: 60 percent are from the U.S., 25 percent from the EU, smaller percentages from Australia/New Zealand and Canada. Player age typically 8-20, approximately 80 percent between 10-16.
- RuneScape HD feeds graphic data to computers with 3D cards for dynamic rendering. Displays at 15 frames per second on minimum spec computers, but can optimize up to 50 FPS. Can display in full screen.

WoW No Longer World’s Biggest MMO?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:56:02 -0700

Based on publicly available data, it looks like an Internet milestone will be passed by the end of next month: World of Warcraft will lose its undisputed status as the most popular massively multiplayer online world. It’s struggling to defend that title as Habbo Hotel, the web-based, social MMO from Finland’s Sulake Corp., is nipping at its heels. Habbo just sent me news that it has logged its 100 millionth registered avatar (pictured at left), and more crucial, that Habbo “attracts close to 10 million monthly visitors to its services worldwide.”

Currently 9.5 million active monthly users, to be exact, compared to Warcraft’s last-reported 10 million subscribers — but at current growth rates, it’s easily within striking range.

“Habbo expects to exceed 10 million unique monthly users within the next 30 days given current growth rates in Habbo and in virtual worlds as a whole,” Habbo Executive Vice President Teemu Huuhtanen told me through a publicist. (In the last six months, the company reports adding 20 million new avatars through a major site redesign and waves of new content, including avatar-based celebrity appearances by “American Idol”’s Jordin Sparks and others.)

“The users want to focus on Habbo’s core,” explained Huuhtanen. “[T]hat is, being in the [virtual] hotel — as opposed to extraneous material on the home page.”

Of course, the battle may not be over: Blizzard/Vivendi might have added more subscribers since reaching 10 million last January, so stand by for updates. Meantime, check out my write-up on “The How of Habbo Hotel,” in which a Sulake executive explains how it gained Warcraft-level numbers with a much smaller budget.

Image credit: www.habbo.com. LOL embellishment by WJA.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:06:46 -0700

WTF?!

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:47:50 -0700

LUA Coding on the Mac - Cosmos UI for World of Warcraft

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:37:56 -0800

World of Warcraft Frame XML UI Definitions

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 03:08:41 -0800

Warcraft Lua addon Tut

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:58:58 -0800

Warcraft Lua addon Tut

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:08:18 -0800

List of slash commands - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:58:28 -0800

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft - Home

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:11:23 -0800

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft - Home

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:11:20 -0800

Greasemonkey - Customize Wowhead

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 01:30:22 -0800

lua-users wiki: Lua Faq

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:07:41 -0700

MMO Guildsites | Blog

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:35:56 -0700

lua-users wiki: Lua Faq

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:17:29 -0700

jeremymeile.ch

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:57:14 -0700

Allakhazam.com: World of Warcraft

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:09:38 -0700

Allakhazam's Magical Realm is an enormous World of Warcraft database with quest walkthroughs, item lists, a full bestiary, spells, tradeskills, talents, maps and much more all with integrated forums for player discussion.

Warcraft 2 using the Stratagus engine

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:23:55 -0700

World of Warcraft Joomla Template

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:25:00 -0700

Armory Musings...: Introduction

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:28:42 -0700

www.outlandishknights.net - Administration [Joomla!]

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:26:50 -0700