RPG Trader's Blog

A new and fairly convincing video has appeared on YouTube showing WoW being played on an iPhone.

There have been many fake videos and rumours on the net in the past about WoW becoming available to play on a phone, but what sets this latest claim out from the rest is that the software being used in the video is made by the people that brought Second Life to the 3G mobile phone, Vollee.

Vollee’s technology allows the streaming of PC games to mobiles over 3G networks and Wi-Fi. The client for popular MMO Second Life was announced last year, sparking speculation over whether they would be able to make a similar client for WoW. Although Blizzard has not been connected with Vollee directly, Vollee had announced a relationship with Activision, who later merged with Blizzard.

To further confuse matters, the video in question was removed from YouTube over the weekend after receiving over 41,000 views. More interestingly however, Vollee’s website is completely down. We had a look around and found a video (seen after the break) that shows the original demonstration with commentary over the top. The commentator describes the Vollee client as a likely ‘Jailbreak App’, which means it only works on phones that have been altered from their original state, allowing unauthorised programs to run on them. The video itself (copied version) appears genuine; many videos like this in the past are simply a recording with the demonstrator performing movements and clicks at the right moment to appear as if he is working the application, when it is in fact just a playback. This clip is over four minutes long though, a tricky prospect for anyone hoping to remember that many moves. The smart UI and the operation also give it more credibility. The response time and quality of the image are believable for such a device, meaning that simple actions such as checking auctions in the in-game auction house, checking mail and basic combat are all possible; tasks people may want to do when away from their computers.

We contacted Blizzard to see if this might be an early version of something they are working on with Vollee or another hoax but unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, they refused to comment. We’ll be keeping our eye on this though, so check back for updates.

News, World of Warcraft iPhone, phone, video, wow, youtube

It’s amazing how Nielsen can get these numbers but they’re reporting a total of 428,621 female WoW players while there are 675,713 male players within the age groups of 25 to 54.

The statistic is even more impressive when considering that an estimated 675,713 unique male players of the same age group logged into World of Warcraft during the period, indicating that the WoW gender gap may not be as large as some imagine.

To cull the numbers, Nielsen uses a software meter to measure game usage on 184,000 PCs worldwide. The metric program is capable of tracking over 1,700 PC games, according to the company.

The largest block of PC game players in general were females 25 years of age and older, though casual games such as Solitaire largely contributed to the bump in stats.

There may be hope for love in a social video game median. So I guess not everyone female character you run into will be another dude.

World of Warcraft

Just recently Peta supported a protest against COD attack hounds and now Peta is off to protect the seals in World of Warcraft.

We recently saw the organization brag about sending a copy of Nintendogs to Activision, in order to prevent the company from showcasing dog killing in its Call of Duty shooter franchise. Now, it seems that, in order to stop real-life cruelty, PETA will organize a virtual protest in one of the most popular online games, World of Warcraft.

That’s right, in something that can only be described as mind boggling, the organization urges players to join it in the Howling Fjord zone on the Whisperwind server, in order to protest against four Horde baby seal killers. All of this is a sort of metaphor against Canada, as it is the main supplier of baby seal fur in the world.

Here’s the official release from PETA: “The fight against the Canadian seal slaughter has gone digital! That’s right, gamers, get ready: This Saturday, WoW players will have the opportunity to combat a team of four Horde seal killers. We need your help to stop them from bashing in the heads of any more seals! Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur. Activists from across the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are banding together to put a stop to the atrocious seal slaughter. Anyone who slaughters baby seals for their fur must surely be in service to the evil Lich King.”

The organization has also released a video that shows a few seal hunters being terribly happy that they will be able to kill some baby seals. Watch it and then share with us your thoughts on this very unique kind of protest from the organization.

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft has been a huge hit closing in to about 12 million players worldwide. Quite an achievement and after that much presence, we expected WotLK to take a big bang as well. It did but not in China, according to JLM Pacific Epoch, the game has yet to even hit the stores.

When I’ve first heard of the big news, I figured it would too addicting to the already “WoW addicts” and they probably don’t need another reason for their youths to spend another 3 hours a day on “crack”. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. The Chinese gov’t did not approve because censorship, the content did not meet the requirements.

Blizzard has been forced to alter the undead characters so that exposed bone is now covered up. That’s a cultural taboo, and the censors didn’t like it. Once that got changed, the game was permitted.

Again, Blizzard is running into the same problems with the Undead class. Additionally, the Death Knight class was not even included on the expansion. That was pretty much the main selling point for WotLK. It would probably be a matter of time before Blizzard/Activision will break through the gov’t strong points, afterall, what’s their $3 billion in cash handy for?

News, World of Warcraft

We’ve made several announcements about a Warhammer Online Trial. First was about a limited trial offered by iGames. Second, was a refer a friend trial which is also limited. Third, a trial offered by Mythic through Fileplanet. Finally, Mythic announces an official 100% free trial.

Boy did Mythic go through a lot of trouble passing out those trials slowly. What happened in return? They lost a bulk load of potentional subscribers. Their subscriber base dropped under 500,000. I don’t ever recall hearing them ever hitting the 1 million mark. It was a very big disappointment considering I expected this to be the next big MMORPG second to WoW.

Potential North American and Oceanic players should head to the official trial starter page, which includes links to a quick start guide, list of system requirements, cinematic trailer, and 41MB game installer. European players can head directly to War-Europe.com and create their trial account. Anyone wishing to upgrade free trial accounts can do so by purchasing a retail copy from their favorite game shop and following these simple steps. Mythic also put together an official free trial FAQ page which should answer any other questions you might have.

Since the enormous 1.2 patch dropped earlier this week, now seems like a great opportunity for anyone sitting on the fence to give WAR a shot for free. Additionally, the game is currently going for $14.00 + $3.99 shipping on Amazon and $6.6+ $3.99 “used“. I don’t quite understand how you can sell a used MMORPG, but good luck and enjoy.

News, Warhammer Online

The February WoW comic contest was just in, no winner has been selected yet but I’ve found something that clearly sparked my humor.

By: Volvulus

Very simple, funny and TRUE.

World of Warcraft

Insurance companies offers services for your important items such as your car, life, policy but would you ever think World of Warcraft?

A new website service has ignited controversy among gamers with its claims to provide compensation for World of Warcraft players who experience problems with the game. The site will apparently offer payments for laggy gameplay, system outages and waiting queues.

YouPlayorWePay.com has been setup to offer WoW players the option to take out insurance against not being able to play the game. So if the WoW servers are down, or the launch of a new expansion means you can’t login because it is so busy, you can claim compensation.

When news first broke in the WoW Insider forums, a number of users dismissed the site as a scam and most wanted to know: “how could these guys get away with asking for a fee and taking people’s money on the promise that they might get some back?”

The site also raises the issue – why isn’t Blizzard offering compensation to paying customers for problems with its game? And are these problems considered serious enough to warrant refunds?

The company has no association with developer Blizzard, but believes that such a service is viable and warranted. The site will charge a monthly fee for the cover which is based on how many characters you add to your account, the maximum being 10 characters, and the level of those characters. Each character is then monitored and the player receives compensation if their realm server goes down or it has a high population meaning access is difficult.

Compensation scheme or pyramid scam?

WoW Insider interviewed George Tung and Milos Golubovic, the site’s founders, to quiz them about their service to the massive MMO community of over 11 million gamers worldwide.

Tung informed them that compensation is calculated from the amount of downtime experienced and a “datalog” compensation factor that’s offered when the game is in “high” population mode. He described it as when the game’s servers are: “just maxed out and there are waiting queues…”

A subscription to the service varies in cost (dependent on your character’s level and realm), but Golubovic notes that it is: “close to five or six dollars. It can get as high as, I believe, 11 dollars.”

So, what do they say to those critics calling the scheme a scam?

“A scam is where we take the money, but we don’t pay out anything,” says Tung. “Of course, we’re a new site, so people will feel like it’s a risk… in terms of just taking a risk to see if people actually make money, yes that’s a risk.”

Tung also added that: “We’re also taking a risk, because our calculations are based on [data] we’ve gathered for only six months. It could be very different this year, or next year, or the year after. We could end up losing a lot of money by doing this.”

Blizzard yet to respond

Blizzard has yet to respond to this third party WoW compensation scheme. The YouPlayorWePay guys, despite highlighting the flaws in Blizzard’s game, claim that they’d: “like to become close partners with Blizzard so that we can implement more features ­­– account security and stuff like that.

Our opinion

So even if they are not a scam, what are really the big benefits? Their max payout is capped at 1.75x your monthly charge. If you’re paying $10, which is almost the price of the subscription, you will only get back $17.50 for it. If you do manage to play all through out the month you’ve just lost $10 out of your own pocket. Is it really worth going through the trouble to pocket a few dollars?

In my sense, it feels to be more of another online casino masked as an insurance company. You either lose money or gain, the odds are calculated through their own algorithm.

So, legitimate compensation scheme or get-rich-quick scam? Make your own mind up. The full interview can be found here.

News, World of Warcraft

Last year Curse launched WOWDB last year which competed against WOWHEAD from ZAM. Both are World of Warcraft database websites but was created with a very similar resemblance as well as similar functions. Perhaps maybe even used to mislead users and create confusion.

Turns out the ZAM network which bought WoW Head for $1 million dollars filed a lawsuit under the radar for copyright infringement for $1.5 million dollars. ZAM says in the suit, copies of which obtained by WoW Insider, that they’ve “expended substantial resources to maintain, update, and promote use of the WOWHEAD website so that it would become… one of the most recognized, and utilized websites designed to attract individuals” who play World of Warcraft. They claimed that WoWDB stole their look and layout purposely to create confusion among customers. This story wasn’t reported in the WoW community at the time — we hadn’t heard about it at all until now.

The case was dismissed completely in January by a judge. As mentioned by WoW Insider, both parties actually wanted out: “Pursuant to the parties’ stipulation for dismissal, the court hereby dismisses the above-captioned action without prejudice.” There has yet been any information released yet on this matter or whether they’ve made a private agreement of any type. The 2 websites still have many similarities so we’re assuming WoW DB will not be changing their interface.

Another possible outcome is that ZAM didn’t think it was worth fighting and decided to no longer pursue to take any action. Additionally, an attorney has also mentioned that they usually do this in order to preserve their rights to bring it back later. There is usually a ticking statute of limitations from when the infringement occurs, so if you bring suit, you preserve the rights to bring it again, where as here, you agree to dismiss without prejudice.

We’ll keep an eye out and keep you posted. Feel free to share your thoughts on this matter.

News, World of Warcraft

If you’re like us and spend half your time at work surfing the net for distractions, you’ve probably been distracted a lot by Felicia Day. Day writes and stars in the hit web sitcom “The Guild” and acted in both “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” and “Legend of Neil“.

“The Guild,” which is about to launch its second season, centers on a group of “World of Warcraft” players meeting in the real world for the first time. So she’s got a pretty good idea how a guy like you can meet a girl without giving up your crippling addiction to WOW. In other words, she reveals how to woo on WOW.

So what advice would you give to guy trying to meet a girl in World Of Warcraft? Well, most of the female avatars in World of Warcraft are actually guys. So if you’re a guy looking to meet girls, you need to make sure to put the person you’re interested in through that vetting process. And if you’re a girl, be prepared to fight guys off with a stick because there’s a lot more of them than there are female gamers. You should join a large guild and pair with other people to go on missions. Try and meet people who are on your same level.

Would it matter to you if the guy’s a noob? Yeah, I hate to say that, but if you’re a noob you probably won’t get a second glance. Just like in real life when a guy drives a Ferrari, it might not be an automatic thumbs up, but it does catch the eye. So if you have the Ferrari of broadswords, yeah.

That’s a big plus. I mean, it’s not necessarily a big plus, but it definitely gets you a second look. Whereas if you’re in some torn cross-stitch pants, you’re probably not even going to be a blip on the radar.

Sure, you wouldn’t want to be seen with a guy like that. Probably not.

World of Warcraft

Researchers hit a virtual gold-mine recently when they asked Sony for backlogs of data for Everquest 2. Much to their surprise Sony handed over over 60 Terabytes of textual data regarding player interactions, chat, and character behavior. The end result is a log that includes four years of data for over 400,000 players that took part in the game, which was followed up with demographic surveys of the users.

From the original article:

Thanks to a partnership with Sony, a team of academic researchers have obtained the largest set of data on social interactions they’ve ever gotten their hands on: the complete server logs of Everquest 2, which track every action performed in the game.

Researchers ranging from psychologists to epidemiologists have wondered for some time whether online, multiplayer games might provide some ways to test concepts that are otherwise difficult to track in the real world. A Saturday morning session at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science described what might be the most likely way of finding out. With the cooperation of Sony, a collaborative group of academic researchers at a number of institutions have obtained the complete server logs from the company’s Everquest 2 MMORPG.

As the researchers who are dealing with this new resource describe it, it’s one of those “be careful what you wish for” situations—with nearly 60TB of data, the standard procedures for tackling social data sets just aren’t up to the job.

So if you thought someone was watching you this whole time…well…You were right.

EverQuest 2, News