Items tagged with WoW
About two years ago, NVIDIA started talking about a shader rendering method that applied varying levels of quality to different objects in the game world. That method was called Variable Rate Shading, or VRS. When applied skillfully and artfully in different areas of a scene that are less prominent in the gamer's field of view, the resulting rendered image quality wouldn't look all that different than if the whole scene had been fully shaded, though the graphics workload savings would improve performance significantly. Fast forward a year or so, and benchmarks became available for measuring the performance differences with and without VRS enabled. Indeed, there was performance to be...
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A big patch is on the way for World of Warcraft that will bring the game up to version 8.3, and it's called "Visions of N'Zoth". The patch will bring with it new content and the need for some players to level-up to be ready when the update launches on January 14. In a nutshell, the Visions of N'Zoth expansion will have players fighting the Old God N'Zoth. Players will fight alongside Magni, Wrathion, and other luminaries to empower Azeroth with defenses built by the Titans. The Old God will try and corrupt the minds of the players with Visions of N'Zoth, which is a new type of repeatable content that will see players exploring a "twisted reflection of a defeated future Azeroth." For players wanting...
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It seems that even Blizzard's World of Warcraft can be a cruel, cruel mistress. Unfortunate fans of the classic WoW experience had their days ruined today by a sustained DDOS attack on Blizzard's servers, according to multiple sources. It isn't just WoW Classic, either. Several independent sources are reporting that servers for the latest expansion, Battle of Azeroth, are also under attack. WoW Classic only launched on August 26th, 2019, which is just a couple of weeks ago at the time of writing. What kind of heartless monster would attack classic MMO fans at a time like this? Could it be a nefarious attack by North Korea, like the Sony breach of 2014? Could it be the work of jilted lovers,...
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On Friday a Community manager for Blizzard made an announcement that fans looking forward to playing World of Warcraft Classic won't want to hear. The community manager warned that based on name reservations so far, the Herod realm is shaping up to be massively overpopulated. The manager said that if all existing players on that server remain there, there will be queues in excess of 10,000 people. The hope is that some of the people who are registered on the Herod realm will move to different realms and ease the overpopulation on the Herod server. The community manager noted that Blizzard recently opened the Stalag realm and it is urging many players registered on the Herod server to move there....
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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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Update, 9:52PM - We have since solved this puzzle. Scroll down to the bottom for spoilers but we'd urge you to journey on for the full backstory. It's not often a fancy, rugged, environmentally resistant Pelican case shows up on our doorstep. Usually, when it does, something valuable or fragile is inside; often times it's both. And without question, whoever sends you something in a case like this, is both concerned with its safe delivery and also concerned that they make the proper statement that something important lies within. So, yeah, this showed up today from a group, entity, organization or tribe of some sort known as The Order Of 10. It was delivered in a very nondescript package...
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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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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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We've seen a lot of strange information come out of the Snowden leaks, much of it deeply worrying. We've learned that the government allegedly has enormous siphoning capability, and sucks up data from the Internet at will, gains access to the entire database of cell phone metadata on everyone in the United States, and has even infiltrated the linkages between Google and Yahoo datacenters. Today, we found out that the government has spread that campaign of spying...to Azeroth. Taurrorism. Get it? I'll be here all week, folks According to The Guardian, the GCHQ (British NSA) and our own organization deployed agents to swarm through virtual worlds, attempted to recruit informants out of friendly...
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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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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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Perhaps in an attempt to reinvigorate its slowly dwindling World of Warcraft user base, Activision Blizzard is considering adding in-game purchases to the online game. In a post on the Battle.net forums, Zarhym (aka Jonathan Brown, WoW Senior Community Rep) said: “We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game. As part of this process, elements related to this will be appearing on the PTR. We’ll provide additional updates on our plans as development progresses.” The comment pertained to the discovery of an in-game spell called the Enduring Elixir of Wisdom that would give the user a 100% increase...
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It's not all too often that an MMO developer is forced to issue a warning about hacked accounts - much less take certain services offline as a result - so if you play World of Warcraft, take note. Blizzard yesterday posted a statement to its Battle.net site stating that there's been an increase in unauthorized account login attempts via the official website and also the mobile armory app. According to WoW Insider, the issue lays entirely with the armory app, where compromised accounts are used to spend obscene amounts of gold on ridiculously-priced white items (in effect, transferring the gold without actually logging into the game client). As a result, Blizzard has gone ahead and disabled the...
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Activision Blizzard has been raking in the dough from its hugely successful subscription-based MMORPG game World of Warcraft for many years, but it appears as though the game is a just past it peak. According to the company’s Q1 2013 earnings report, the game lost 1.3 million subscribers in the last three months alone, dropping the game’s subscription numbers to 8.3 million subscribers. This follows the loss of about 1 million subscribers last summer. The current losses primarily came from the East, meaning that the West is still very much in love with the game, but Activision Blizzard CEO Robert A. Kotick seems to accept the fact that it’s only a matter of time until WoW fizzles...
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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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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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It's been a while since we've seen SteelSeries make a major splash in the gaming mice space, but there's no better time to re-enter that fray than at E3. The accessories company has just launched a rechargeable, wireless MMO mouse that looks up to World of Warcraft, and features a docking station, wired option and in-game setup to bind all 11 buttons while also storing unlimited game profiles. The SteelSeries Engine software guides players through an easy, in-game integration set-up with drag and drop functionality of World of Warcraft commands, full button remapping, macro creation and the ability to save an unlimited number of game profiles. Dark stone-gray in color, the mouse sports a translucent,...
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This is one of those little tidbits that breaks like a tactical nuke, not because it's a major policy change, but because the company in question has just revealed an astonishing degree of stupidity and is blissfully ignorant of it. In the wake of massive hacks, Blizzard released a statement reassuring world+dog that it takes our account security very seriously. That's why Battle.net passwords are all case insensitive! Wait, what? Yup! Check this out. These screenshots brought to you buy Vasadan, official Blizzard Quality Assurance staff. The original thread is here, but we wouldn't expect it to be there very long. The only thing better than a BS defense of an indefensible security policy is...
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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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