- New Post: Cayleb's Weekly Ramblings: 2010-05-23 – http://is.gd/cmbkW #
- Looking forward to getting home and trying out the Operation: Gnomeregan questline on the PTR! #
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Archive for May, 2010
- New Post: Cayleb's Weekly Ramblings: 2010-05-16 – http://is.gd/ccvbw #
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- New Post: Uldum is Tatooine… Sort Of – http://is.gd/c39cn #
- New Post: Does Anyone Feel a Draft? – http://is.gd/c63i3 #
- New Post: Beta Imminent – How To Opt-In – http://is.gd/c7Ojj #
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Bornakk:
Get those opt-ins ready for the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta! The sundering of Azeroth is nigh, and you don’t want to be left out in the cold of Northrend when you could be enjoying the sun-drenched beaches on the goblin isle of Kezan. To ensure you’re opted-in and eligible as a potential candidate, you’ll need a World of Warcraft license attached to your Battle.net account, have your current system specifications uploaded to the Battle.net Beta Profile Settings page, and have expressed interest through the franchise-specific check boxes.
So get your opt-ins set up, updated, and ready; we’re worgen real hard to get the beta going soon!
Link: https://www.battle.net/account/management/beta-profile.xml
Step 1 - Have a World of Warcraft License (duh.)
Step 2 – Go to the link above and download the program, let it scan you and assmilate… I mean assess your computer’s basic settings. It will then automatically upload those settings to Battle.net.
Step 3 – Go back to that link and make sure the settings are listed and the check box for Warcraft-universe betas is checked.
Resistance is futile. Or surprisingly easy. I’m never sure which.
Does Anyone Feel a Draft?
May 12
If you’re wondering what happened to my recent post on Uldum, it has been removed from the public portion of this site. It any any other postings regarding information leaked from the Cataclysm alpha will be unviewable until such time as the NDA is lifted. I am doing this voluntarily and of my own accord.
I haven’t received any sort of request from Blizzard to pull down recent posts that contained leaked Cataclysm information. In fact, they haven’t contacted me directly at all. But they did contact mmo-champion. I figure if he’s not gonna fight them, what chance would I stand? I don’t have an army of lawyers or even a legal department, unlike Blizzard Activision, Inc.
A video game is not worth going into personal bankruptcy, nor is it worth my losing sleep over the threat of litigation.
Like Boubouille, I am requesting that no spoilers, links to spoilers, and (especially) links to leaked alpha builds/servers/sandboxes be posted in the comments section here. (Not that I think any of my five readers would do such a thing, but it must be said.) Any such comments will be removed immediately and result in week-long bans of the commenter’s IP address(es).
There. My @$$ is now officially covered.
- So I totally just revamped my commenting system with Intense Debate. Check it out @ bubble-hearth.com #
- New Post: The World of Starfacecraftiablo I – http://is.gd/bVZmy #
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Blizzard have a lot of very successful projects going on right now. Like Apple with personal computing and Google with web search and innovation, they’ve found something they’re good at and stuck to it. (Microsoft is good with things too, before all the Gates fanboys comment me to death. Just not things I’d actually want to use to get work done.) Blizzard’s strength is in creating immersive and engaging gaming experiences. And right now, they’re coming full into bloom.
Starcraft II releases July 27th. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (the third expansion for WoW) releases Soon™ after—probably before October, based on statements made at BlizzCon 2009. Diablo III is widely expected to release in 2011, though no definitive statements on that have been forthcoming from Blizzard. And it’s no secret that Blizzard has been working on a “Next Gen MMO” as well.
Enter Battle.net’s REAL ID. This is a clear signal from Blizzard that it will not fall behind in social gaming. While cross-game friend lists have been around for a while (current consoles have them, as do companies like Steam), deep integration with Facebook is new.
New, but not surprising.
You see, gaming is powerfully social. One need only to look at Farmville or Scrabb… I mean wordplay games… on Facebook to see that. Since the dawn of history, humankind have played games to pass the time, and played them with their friends and family.
It follows that since Facebook is the current social template for organizing and communicating along those relationships, social gaming will stand a better chance for success if it closely follows that model. Game providers used to have to build their own networks (GameSpy anyone?) but now they can tap into pre-existing ones. It makes social networks less fragmentary and more… well… social when you don’t have to check five different places to see if your friend wants to get together to play a game of chess or PvP in Southshore.
By 2015, there will be very few—if any—games left that fail to connect the player to a robust social network.
Part II of this series will deal with the privacy implications of Blizzard’s new changes.
