Items tagged with World of Warcraft
It was 15 years ago when World of Warcraft first stormed the scene, and rather than look back fondly at the game's early days, developer Blizzard went and released a World of Warcraft Classic. It has proven to be quite the popular decision. Gamers have flocked to the classic MMORPG, and in short order, are already hitting the level cap at 60. What makes this feat remarkable is how quickly the players have risen. WoW Classic just launched last Tuesday, and now less than a week later, hundreds of players have reached level 60. The first to do it was Jokerd, a 22-year-old streamer from Malta. He created a gnome mage and ranked up to level 60 in just 3 days, 20 hours, and 40 minutes, in front of...
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It has been well over a decade since World of Warcraft (WoW) first burst onto the PC gaming scene, however, the most recent WoW Battle for Azeroth expansion landed back in late 2017. In its heyday, WoW was a massive game with millions of players, and it first crossed the 12 million player threshold in October 2010. Fans of the game will be able to enjoy WoW Classic starting on August 26 in the States. The launch will give players access to the 1.12 version of the game known in its day as the "Drums of War" update. Blizzard Entertainment will be conducting beta and stress tests before the game launches. To get in on the testing of WoW Classic will require players to opt into testing on their account...
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It is pretty amazing to think that World of Warcraft, arguably the most popular MMORPG of all time, is still going strong 13 years after its debut. Exactly how strong is not known—Blizzard no longer shares subscriber numbers, but there are enough users to warrant releasing another expansion for its lucrative gaming franchise. The developer/publisher shared more details at BlizzCon about its next WoW expansion, Battle for Azeroth. The next expansion is a return to basics for WoW. It is the sixth major expansion, and will pit the Alliance and Horde against each other in all-out warfare, bringing players back to the core conflict. The tension between the two factions has always been there, but having...
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Activision Blizzard Launches Consumer Products Division Spearheaded By Former Mattel And Disney Exec
If you're a fan of any Activision or Blizzard game series, then there's a new reason to be excited. Announced today, parent company Activision Blizzard is launching a new division focused squarely on consumer products. Love Overwatch? Expect to see an even greater selection with your geek gear soon. To launch this division, former Mattel and Disney executive Tim Kilpin was brought in, who helped both companies achieve great success in similar areas. He says, "I’m excited to lead this newly-formed division and join Activision Blizzard’s already incredibly talented consumer products team in delivering powerful new partnerships and even more touchpoints to audiences." While fans of Blizzard or Activision...
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This is turning out to be one heck of a year for geek culture in entertainment. First, fans (both new and old) of the Star Wars franchise were treated to a long awaited sequel to the original trilogy in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and later this year World of Warcraft may be tempted to log off the popular MMORPG long enough to see the movie Warcraft. Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures released a 30-second teaser trailer of the forthcoming flick based on Blizzard's cash cow of a franchise. It's a blended live-action, CG movie set in Azeroth, a peaceful place that's on the brink of war as Orc warriors fleeing from their dying home invade the territory looking for a new place to settle...
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Pac-Man has officially been recognized as one of the most important video games of all time. Such is the insinuation from being one of only half a dozen titles inducted into The Strong's inaugural World Video Game Hall of Fame, which includes a collection of titles that span multiple decades, countries of origin, and gaming platforms.What they all have in common is that they each "significantly affected the video game industry, popular culture, and society in general." Based on those merits, it's hard to argue against the inclusion of Pac-Man, a game that debuted 35 years ago and is one of the stars in the upcoming Pixels movie starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James.The other four inductees include...
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Like many MMORPGs, World of Warcraft can be a grind. To sidestep the time commitment required to continually level up a character, gather resources, improve skills, or whatever else is desired, some gamers turn to bots, software that automates the process. The only problem is, Activision Blizzard isn't so keen on this behavior and has dropped the ban hammer hard on gamers who've been using them. Activision Blizzard didn't specify exactly how many people it booted, saying only that it was a "large number of World of Warcraft accounts." However, a screenshot of a conversation between a player, Game Master, and Activision Blizzard employee suggests that over 100,000 World of Warcraft accounts were...
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Blizzard appears to have ended access to its games in Crimea, effectively blocking gamers there from playing Diablo III, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and other blizzard games. It’s just one of several U.S. companies that have exited the region recently. Others include Apple and Blizzard’s competitor, Valve. “You are receiving this email because, in accordance with current trade regulations relating to the region of Crimea, we are legally required to suspend access to your Battle.net account,” states a letter that appears to be from Blizzard, translated by Geektimes.ru. “Any recurring subscription payment will be canceled.”Image credit: BlizzardThe move is the result of an executive order...
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As Blizzard gets ready to release its Warlords of Draenor expansion pack for its highly popular World of Warcraft MMORPG, you might find yourself wondering if your PC will even be able to run it. After all, it's going to introduce higher levels of detail, updated animations, lots of new visuals, and new and improved character models. So, should you fret about your hardware? Blizzard released minimum and recommended system requirements for the expansion pack, and quite frankly, none are all that demanding, though you do need a relatively modern system to satisfy the recommended specs. Let's have a look. As for the minimum system requirements, Blizzard calls for the the following: PC: Windows XP/Windows...
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During the weekend the gaming industry has been suffering from a barrage of DDoS attacks. Blizzard’s Battle.net, League of Legends, and Sony’s PlayStation Network are just some of the games and services that have experienced unexpected downtime. However, it appears one hacker group is claiming responsibility for all of these attacks and more. A group called Lizard Squad has been claiming responsibility for bringing down Battle.net, League of Legends, NCSoft, and Sony’s PlayStation Network over the past week on its Twitter account. As of the posting of this article, the organization currently claims that it will be bringing down Microsoft’s Xbox Live service too....
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While World of Warcraft’s subscription numbers have dropped to 6.8 million players, Blizzard shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Warlords of Draenor, will launch on November 13. The news was revealed at a world premiere event today in Los Angeles. During the event, the opening cinematic scene for Warlords of Draenor was shown that revealed some well-known characters from Warcraft lore, such as Garrosh Hellscream, and the formation of the Iron Horde that is bent on conquering everything in its path. Warlords of Draenor will be WoW’s fifth expansion where players will fight on the world of Draenor to save the world...
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There probably won't be a cameo by Michael J. Fox, nor should you expect to man the DeLorean in Blizzard's "Warlords of Draenor" expansion pack for World of Warcraft, but if you jump on board, you will experience time travel. Announced at BlizzCon 2013, the fifth expansion to Blizzard's incredibly popular WoW game sends players to Draenor during a "pivotal moment" in the past to fight alongside or against certain legends at the height of their primal power, like Grommash Hellscream, Blackhand, and Ner'zhul. "Warlords of Draenor gives players a chance to take a commanding role in one of the Warcraft series’ most crucial conflicts," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment....
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When Blizzard launched Diablo III, one of the game's most controversial features was the inclusion of a real money and standard auction house. This was an optional component of the game that allowed players to purchase items and equipment for real money. It ran concurrently with the game's traditional auction system and no one was required to use it. Gold could be bought and sold on the RMAH -- if you wanted items that were available on the "regular" auction house, you could buy gold with them on the RMAH, transfer it to your character, and then use it to purchase equipment. The entire system was billed as an experiment in funding and game design -- an experiment Blizzard has decided to end....
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The CEO of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick announced this morning that he would lead an investor buyout of the company worth approximately $8.2 billion dollars. The move would free Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?) to become an independent publisher and free it from the clutches of Vivendi, the evil French entertainment conglomerate. Vivendi has reportedly been attempting to sell Activision Blizzard for years, due to an apparent hatred of actually turning a profit, given than the game developer owns some of the most popular franchises on Earth. Kotick, otherwise known as Satan (if you think I'm kidding, hie thee to Google and type "Bobby Kotick is a" in the search bar and...
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At PAX East today, Blizzard debuted its next Warcraft title -- a freemium digital collectible card game dubbed HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft. A 15-man team at Blizzard is responsible for developing the game, which marks Blizzard's first entry into the freemium market. The game, according to Blizzard's Chief Creative Officer Rob Pardo, is "something we've wanted to experiment with for a while... A lot of people at Blizzard have played CCGs for a really long time." Blizzard plans to have 300 cards available at launch with five cards per pack. Packs will cost $1 and can be earned/unlocked through playing the game. Cards are divided into categories of common, rare, epic, and legendary; there's...
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It's official, folks -- I will not be running for President or any other political office. I don't have a grand desire to enter a life of politics anyhow, but if I did, my past (and present) would come back to haunt me. You see, I'm a thief and a damn good pickpocket. Probably one of the best in all of Tamriel. I've killed, maimed, and even had stints as a terrorist, planting bombs in dusty desert locales and holding office workers hostage. I've eaten mushrooms that made me feel twice as tall, and have run over prostitutes with stolen cars...more than once. Yes, I'm a gamer, and I do all kinds of unscrupulous things in alternate realities. Colleen Lachowicz, a Democratic candidate for state Senate...
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Thanks to the investigations kick-started by World of Warcraft player Sendatsu, it's been discovered that Activision Blizzard has been embedding hidden watermarks into screenshots taken with the game client over the past couple of years. The exact time the practice began has not been settled-upon, but it's believed to have begun somewhere during 2008 with patch 3+, and 2010 with patch 4+. It hasn't been mentioned how Sendatsu stumbled-upon this discovery, but simple instructions are given to allow you to verify the practice. You must find an area where a texture is as flat in color as possible - white ideally - and it's better if you're able to zoom in so that the solid color fills your screen....
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Activision Blizzard's mega popular MMORPG isn't called World of Warcrack for no reason, folks. The correct title, of course, is World of Warcraft (WoW), and it's been the leading cause for neglected hygiene for going on eight years. At last count, WoW was home to 9.1 million subscribers, Activision Blizzard revealed in its second quarter financial report. That's a heck of a lot of subscribers -- enough to maintain the game's rank as the most popular subscription-based MMORPG around -- but it's also 1.1 million lower than the 10.2 million paying players that were roaming Azeroth back in February of this year. Is WoW's run coming to an end? Probably not anytime soon, even if the drop in subscribers...
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Diablo III is the sequel to one of the most popular games of all time; its launch on May 15 could cripple college graduation rates, triple the number of insomniacs worldwide, and slash national productivity. Believe us--we know. We've spent about six weeks with the beta and have just recently escaped from Khanduras to detail our findings. This time, there's a twist, however. Our preview is written in two parts; a big-picture examination of the game and a fine-grained, behind-the-scenes look at how Diablo 3 deals with some of the problems and design flaws endemic to its predecessor... Seeking Sanctuary: The Definitive Diablo III Preview...
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Diablo III is the sequel to one of the most popular games of all time; its launch on May 15 could cripple college graduation rates, triple the number of insomniacs worldwide, and slash national productivity. Believe us--we know. We've spent about six weeks with the beta and have just recently escaped from Khanduras to detail our findings. This time, there's a twist, however. Our preview is written in two parts; a big-picture examination of the game and a fine-grained, behind-the-scenes look at how Diablo 3 deals with some of the problems and design flaws endemic to its predecessor. End of Days Diablo III's story begins here, in Tristram's old cathedral. You arrive in New Tristram roughly a week...
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Maybe you're addicted to World of Warcraft and spend every free moment immersed in the most popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) of all time, wandering through Azeroth doing whatever it is WoW players do. I wouldn't know, but I assume it's a lot of questing and raids. As popular as WoW has become, I've never set virtual foot in Azeroth. Not once. That's okay because WoW is doing just fine without my participationThere are WoW subscribers in all corners of the globe, and it takes a massive amount of gear to host all the different game worlds, or realms, as they're referred to. Each realm is hosted on its own server, and in late 2011, Activision Blizzard began auctioning...
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Maybe you're addicted to World of Warcraft and spend every free moment immersed in the most popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) of all time, wandering through Azeroth doing whatever it is WoW players do. I wouldn't know, but I assume it's a lot of questing and raids. As popular as WoW has become, I've never set virtual foot in Azeroth. Not once. That's okay because WoW is doing just fine without my participation. At last count, Activision Blizzard pegged the number of subscribers at 10.2 million, or about half a million more than the combined populations of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and...
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