Recent Headlines
WoW's Faction Change Service Launches
Blizzard has finally launched the much anticipated Faction Change service to users in the United States, with other regions expected to soon follow. The service costs $30, and allows characters to switch from Alliance to Horde and vice versa. Mounts, achievements, factions, spells- the whole nine yards are switched when you make the change.
There's a few conditions, of course; you can only switch to an opposing faction's race that offers the same class, for example. You'll still have to wait till Cataclysm for those Tauren priests and Gnome paladins, you crafty gamers you.
More details available at Blizzard's FAQ on the new service. You can access the new service as well as the existing re-customization and transfer services from the accounts manager.
Turbine sues Atari over DDO (and perhaps NWN MMO?)
Turbine is perusing legal action against publisher Atari for fraud, breach of contract and unjust enrichment to the sum of $30 million dollars.
Turbine licensed the rights to build Dungeons & Dragons Online back in 2003, but alleges that Atari has been less than supportive of their launch of the now free to play MMO, stating that the company has been trumping up false charges against Turbine in order to free themselves from their contractual obligations and potentially extort funds from the popular development studio. Why? In order to clear the way for their next D&D online property, suspected to be a Neverwinter Nights MMO.
Turbine states that they would have never expended the time, money and effort to launch DDO: Unlimited had they had any warning that Atari would not make good on their obligation of support. As of 2006, Turbine had invested a reported $20 million dollars into the DDO project.
More details as they develop.
SWTOR Walkthrough Tour
The developers at Bioware prepared a walk through tour of Star Wars The Old Republic for the recent Gamescon conference in Europe.
Here is that tour, which gives a great first look at many of the games features:
BlizzCon 2009 Coverage
BlizzCon 2009 is here! I'll be updating this post as Blizzard drops new details on Cataclysm, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3 and anything else they might have up their sleeves.
World of Warcraft
- World of Warcraft: Cataclysm officially confirmed as the next expansion.
- Cataclysm site (with trailer) is live
- Horde Goblin and Alliance Worgen races confirmed.
- New class combinations confirmed.
- Deathwing is back; he awakens and literally erupts from the world, causing the CATACLYSM the expansion is named after.
- Azeroth ripped apart; the Barrens, Ashenvale and the Wetlands are dramatically altered; no zone untouched by the cataclysm. Barrens split in half. Redesign level flow for all zones; a level 20 zone now might turn into a 40-45 zone. Radically changed 1-60 experience.
- Flying mounts anywhere in Azeroth!
- Greymane Wall is shattered.
- New instances; "Bastions of Antiquity", Heroic Shadowfang Keep, ...
- New 'Archaeology' secondary profession; discovering and analyzing ancient artifacts. Plays into the new character enhancement system, "Path of the Titans."
- New guild leveling system; anything players do contribute to the advancement. Access to new guild perks, with a guild talent tree (things like cheaper repairs, a mass resurrections.)
- 2 new beginning zones that "rival the Death Knight starting experience."
- Goblin mounts look CRAZY
- Much of the new, high level content involves "elemental planes".
- Home cities (Undercity, Orgrimmar, etc.) redesigned
- Level cap increased to 85.
- Seven new zones. "Sunken City of Vashj'ir" will be entirely underwater (Blizz promises "won't be annoying to play there.") 5 new adventure zones for level 78-85.
- "Phased terrain"; the phasing system introduced in WotLK is expanded. Blizzard can now change whole chunks of the world for you during a quest line, not just the NPCs/mobs/buildings/objects there. This should lead to some seriously epic questing.
- "Path of the Titans"; completely new type of enhancement. No new talents. Can unlock new Glyph spots. Archaeology profession ties into this.
- "Mastery System"; as you spend points in a talent tree you'll get special bonuses specific to that tree (like critical strike bonuses, etc.)
StarCraft 2
- StarCraft 2 and Battle.net will have a fully interwoven, unified experience.
- You'll start the game much like you start World of Warcraft; by logging into your Battle.net account. You'll have all your characters, achievements, etc. no matter where you login from.
- Will be able to play in "guest" mode when there's no Internet connection.
- Replay/rewind gameplay mode.
- Character profiles, much like World of Warcraft's Armory site. Integrated into the game.
- Unlock new service avatars by earning achievements.
- Can also unlock new unit decals by earning achievements. Nice customization.
- "Party" system inspired by MMOs; groups players together. Friends can move between matches as one. Slick!
- New ladder system that isn't just for hard-core gamers.
- Powerful new map editing system.
- "Map publishing"- mod author's can publish their creations to the Battle.net servers. Players can download maps without leaving the game. Maps are always up to date. All mods available to all players, no installation hassle. Just click, download and play.
- "StarCraft 2 Marketplace" planned for post-launch. Browse, comment, and rate maps/mods. Free and premium maps- with portion of revenue going to map creators. They compared it to the iPhone App Store.
- Blizzard will support mod authors; popular maps will have player achievements added, higher level of integration into the matchmaking experience, etc.
Diablo 3
- New class announced: Monk.
Battle.net
- "Always Connected Experience"; closer integration with the games.
- Persistent characters attached to Battle.net account system.
- Delivery of news, new content.
- Integrated friends lists in Battle.net games (like StarCraft 2.)
- "Cloud storage"; saves your mission progress, characters, achievements, etc. Great for people that play at work (*ahem*) and want to finish a mission when they get home.
- Improved matchmaking experience. Private/public game swapping. Easier team configuration.
- Cross-game notifications, friends lists, etc. Expect integration between StarCraft 2, Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft. See what friends are playing, chat, etc. Think Steam ingame, or Xfire.
- Blizzard openly looking at Xbox Live, Google Talk and social networking websites for inspiration going forward. Wants to be the best community gaming experience out there.
- Battle.net Real ID: see and communicate with friends based on how you know them. Inspired by Facebook and Twitter.
- Talk to friends cross-game, cross-realm.
- Cross-game, cross-character achievements. Account-wide achievements (unlock on one character, unlock on all, for example) and achievement scores.
- Friends list differentiates between real life (cross-game) friends and character-specific friends.
- Privacy and parental controls.
- Planning to open up game-wide, player and character-specific data outside of Blizzard.com; XML/RSS feeds, web APIs, etc. Next step after launching StarCraft 2 marketplace (post-launch.)
Updating as it comes to us...