World of Warcraft

Since its release in 2004, Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft has stayed on the monthly subscription business model for the most part. While Blizzard does charge its players extra for things like faction or race changes in their characters, they have not gone into the business of selling in-game items for real money as other MMOs have done.

That may finally be changing, however, as Blizzard has now introduced a way to buy in-game pets for your World of Warcraft character via Blizzard's online store. Currently only two pets are available for $10 each; Lil' K.T. and Pandaren Monk (shown to the right) Blizzard has also announced that from now until December 31, half of the proceeds from the purchase of the latter character will go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

[Via Wow.com]

After weeks of waiting, Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft finally came back online in mid-September in China after reported issues with that country's government kept the transition to a new provider, NetEase, from, moving as planned. Now our sister site WoW.com reports that there could be problems in China yet again.

According to the article, China's General Administration of Press and Publications have ordered NetEase to suspend taking new accounts and stop taking money from current subscribers. This is apparently at odds with another government entity, the Ministry of Culture, who have called their fellow government division's action's "not appropriate." Sounds like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

It's been highly anticipated for months but now players in World of Warcraft can have the ultimate change. This week developer Blizzard revealed that players can now change the race of their already existing character while still stayin in their faction (Alliance or Horde for you non-World of Warcraft players . . . all two of you).

The game's offiical web site has an extensive FAQ about the new service which is separate from the developer's faction change service which lets player's change from Alliance to Horde and vice-versa. Like that feature, the race change service isn't free; you will have to pony up $25 for each character race shift. Hey, it's still cheaper than most medical charges in the real world.

It's been a little while since we have seen any lists from the NPD Group on retail PC game sales. The organization decided to no longer release their weekly top 10 PC game sales lists to the media but today they did release their top 20 best selling PC games for the month of September in retail stores.

It's not a shock to learn that NCsoft's fantasy MMO Aion was the number one best selling PC game for the month as it was already selling well in pre-orders online. The Collectors Edition made it to number four for the month. EA's The Sims 3 continues to do well in the number two slot while Cryptic Studios' super hero MMO Champions Online made a strong debut at number 3. Blizzard's MMO expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King made it at number four.

One interesting note before we get to the list itself. Phantom EFX has two of their popular casino PC games in the top 20 list but their hardcore PC FPS Darkest of Days, released in September, failed to make the top 20.

1. Aion - NCsoft
2. The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts
3. Champions Online - Cryptic Studios/Atari
4. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
5. Aion Collector's Edition - NCsoft
6. Mumbo Jumbo Assortment - Mumbo Jumbo
7. The Sims 3 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
8. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. Real Deal Slots Treasures of the Far East - Phantom EFX
10. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
11. Spore - Electronic Arts
12. Grand Theft Auto IV - Rockstar Games
13. StarCraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
14. Zuma's Revenge - Popcap Games
15. World of Warcraft: the Burning Crusade - Blizzard
16. Batman: Arkham Asylum - Rocksteady/Eidos
17. Real Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
18. Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Seas - Her Interactive
19. Civilization IV: The Compete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
20. The Sims 2 University Life Collection - Electronic Arts

A while back we mentioned that DC Comics' Wildstorm division was going to end their current World of Warcraft monthly comic book series and then start again with not one but two new series, one for the Alliance faction in Blizzard's hit MMO and the other for the Horde. This week, via Comic Book Resources, we now have more info on both of the new World of Warcraft comic book series.

The all new Horde comic (you can see the cover for the first issue to the right) is written by Doug Murray and drawn by Pop Mhan. The Alliance-based comic retains the original World of Warcraft issue numbering (hence World of Warcraft: Alliance 26). It will be written by Mike Costa and drawn by Neil Googe. Both issues will go on sale in January.

You may remember that former game journalist and current big time Hollywood screenwriter Gary Whitta admitted publicly that he had worked on drafts for the upcoming World of Warcraft movie for two years. That ended when Sam Raimi was named as the director of the adaptation of Blizzard's hit MMO game.

Now MTV News is reporting that the new screenwriter has been revealed. According to an interview with Raimi he stated that Robert Rodat, who has credits including Saving Private Ryan, is now writing the script for the adaptation. Raimi also stated the movie will be an original story and not really based on specific World of Warcraft storylines. Raimi is scheduled to begin production of the movie after his work on Spider-Man 4 is completed.

You may remember a while ago that the wonky Australian game ratings system allowed MMO titles like World of Warcraft to be sold in stores in that country, even though the ratings system never assigned such games with a rating. Normally such a situation would have banned a game from being sold. Now GameSpot is reporting that has changed for World of Warcraft and its two expansion pack as they have all received an "M" rating with an extra note saying "online content variable."

The game's publisher Blizzard stated that they have been trying to get the game rated in Australia since World of Warcraft's release in 2004 and that "recent changes" in the ratings board have allowed such titles to receive a rating. However the Australian Classification Board isn't talking about those changes, saying only, "The Classification Board has been following developments in online gaming."

The documentary film Second Skin, Directed by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza, examines the different aspects of the MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games) phenomenal popularity, the culture that has grown around them and speaks to experts and developers about them. While the documentary has a tendency to fly in different directions in its attempt to cover every facet of gaming, it mainly focuses on three distinct stories. The first centers on a group of friends in Fort Wayne, Indiana who are dedicated World of Warcraft players; the second includes a budding romance between two EverQuest 2 players; and the last involves a man who hits rock bottom with his MMO addiction.

Title: Second Skin
Directed and Edited By: Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Year: 2008

Sports fans, and we are taking die-hard sports fans here, always seem to have an opinion on how they should be running things if they were in charge of a sports team. Well, one of the executives of Blizzard Entertainment has decided to take some of his vast earnings and dive into the world of professional sports ownership.

Or at least a small part of that ownership. As revealed last week on the weeb site of the Pittsburgh Steelers, there is a new collection of 10 owners for the NFL pro football team. That includes the Sams family which has Paul Sams, currently the COO of Blizzard, as part of the group (along with his wife Susan and their three children). It's currently unknown exactly how much of a share the Sams family owns and how much it's worth.

[Via Joystiq]

This patch updates World of Warcraft and its expansions to v3.2.2a and addresses some minor issues introduced in the v3.2.2 patch. Full patch notes can be found at the official website.

Download World of Warcraft v3.2.2a Patch [US] (8 MB)
Download World of Warcraft v3.2.2a Mac Patch [US] (4 MB)

This minor patch updates World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King from v3.2.0 to v3.2.2. It addresses a number of gameplay issues and fixes bugs. Full patch notes can be found at the official website.

Download World of Warcraft v3.2.0 to v3.2.2 Patch [US] (40 MB)
Download World of Warcraft v3.2.0 to v3.2.2 Patch Mac Patch [US] (37 MB)

It took a lot longer than publisher Activision Blizzard wished it did, we are sure. but now it seems that the Chinese version of Blizzard's hit MMO World of Warcraft is back in full (i.e. commercial) operation. Gamasutra reports that the Chinese servers went back up over the past weekend.

Blizzard expected downtime of only a few weeks in China this past June when it decided to transition its World of Warcraft license to another operator, NetEase. However the game took a lot longer to come back online as the Chinese government mandated some content changes to the game. The big question is how many of the millions of Chinese players will return to the game after such a long time

The Austin Game Developers Conference continued today with a presentation by Blizzard personnel on the inner workings of their hit MMO World of Warcraft. Our sister site WoW Insider attended the conference and has an audio recording of the hour long keynote from Blizzard VP J. Allen Brack and production director Frank Pearce. Some of the interesting facts in the presentation include:

• The game evolved out of the Warcraft II team which split into two groups after finishing that game. One worked on Warcraft III and the other started work on a squad-based sci-fi RPG game called Nomad. However they were not happy with how that game was progressing and decided to cancel Nomad and work on a Warcraft-themed MMO instead.
• Only 37 people actually work on World of Warcraft itself in terms of game design. Of course there are lots of other people involved in the game's develoment including 123 folks in cinematics, 51 artists, community service members and others.
• "Patch day" for the game is a huge event in terms of data for Blizzard. They state that for the recent patch 3.1 they had 4.7 petabytes of data go through their pipes to update the game. That's 4,700 thousand terebytes. And almost half of that data is audio related.
• Despite charging $125 for one ticket to their two day event (not to mention the revenue generated though DirectTV/Internet streaming and sales of exclusive merchandise at the store) Blizzard runs their annual BlizzCon event at a "substantial loss", but added that the event is still worth it from a marketing and PR stance.
• Finally, the current bug count for World of Warcraft is huge. How huge? Try 179,484 bugs in the game right now that Blizzard is tracking.

It looks like a number of MMO game publishers are being hit with lawsuits from a company that claims they are all violating patent agreements. Boston.com reports that their local MMO company Turbine along with Sony, Activision Blizzard, NCsoft and Jagex have all been hit with such lawsuits by Paltalk Holdings.

Paltalk owns the rights to two patents that describe technology for sharing data with lots of connected computers. They have already settled a case with Microsoft who Paltalk accused of using their patents in the multiplayer potion of Microsoft's Halo series. So far there's been no reaction yet from any of the MMO publishers named in the lawsuit.

As August comes to a close and we enter what is traditionally the busiest time of the year for PC gaming, we are looking back on the past 31 days to pick out what we believe were the top 10 news stories of the month for PC gaming. It was a time of new game announcements (thanks in part to Gamescom) but a lot of the news came from Blizzard's own event BlizzCon.

News stories we picked for the top 10 included the sad news of layoffs and even complete shutdowns of game developers, the release of a new version of a PC gaming client and word that a two year old console game might be released for the PC in an "AO" rated version. We also threw in a couple of extra news stories that, while big, didn't quite make the top 10 list.

Click on the image above to continue reading The Top 10 PC Game News Stories For August 2009