Gamasutra reports that Blizzard had initially intended for World of Warcraft to be free to play, presumably on some variant of their Battle.net service. Through their research, the company came to the conclusion that they couldn’t sustain the game without subscriptions. Imagine how many people would be playing it if it were free! On the other hand, would we have seen fewer non-expansion content updates without the fee?  Hit the break for a link to the whole interview. Continue Reading

For those of you that thought Diablo II was long gone, Blizzard has something to say about that. The company has just released patch 1.12 for the game which gives it an update including a ladder reset and a no-CD patch. That’s right, the players still absorbed in the world of the game will now be able to play the game without the CD! Read on for some more details.

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World of Warcraft players may find a new thing to poopsock in the upcoming expansion: achievements. Rumor has it that Blizzard will be adding the ever-popular metric of gamer worth to Wrath of the Lich King. I was planning on making a quip about how dumb achievements are, but I soon remembered playing Bioshock twice in a row to get 1000/1000. Woops! Continue Reading

Jeanne Stevens is a Republican candidate for the Connecticut state legislature. She also plays World of Warcraft. In the article over at Wandering Goblin, she mentions her three main characters and their specs. Let’s be frank here: her 70 hunter’s spec is awful. Aside from that completely inconsequential flaw, though, she seems like a reasonable candidate. Hit the break for more. Continue Reading

I bet some of you thought that one of PC Gamer’s exclusive announcements was going to be a new game in that series some people were a little crazy about….Diablo, was it? Rumors were going around that they were going to unveil the game, but their magazine won’t have anything about it. Read on to see what the editor’s official statement was.

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Hello, my name is Dylan Hecht and I’m a World of Warcraft addict. Or at least I was until yesterday, when I cancelled my account. Now anyone that knows me, or at least listens to the podcast (where I manage to stick in a WoW story almost every week), is probably totally shocked by that last statement.

The real question though, is: why? Why after almost two years after starting have I finally decided to call it quits on the world of Azeroth?

It’s really a combination of a few different, although crucial factors. The server I was on, Darkspear, is not one known to the WoW universe as one that has a lot of PvE progression. Last time I checked, we had two guilds that have downed Illidan. Two. For a whole server. I was not in either of those guilds, either. I was busy toiling away in the ten man raids of Karazhan and Zul’Aman. Over and over and over and over and…well you get the point. I’ve done a bit of the 25 man content, but trying to keep 25 people together and running on the same page wasn’t a stress I wanted to deal with.

But really, that isn’t it. The real motivation behind quitting was that, honestly, I was just bored.

I’ve been playing since a week after The Burning Crusade as Stigma, my Draenei Shaman. I had a brief afair with a Paladin but he was a bit too judgmental. *rimshot*

That’s about a year and a half playing as one character. A year and a half leveling up all over Azeroth and the Outland. A year and a half of running 5 man dungeons until my fingers hurt. A year and a half doing things like leveling my fishing and cooking to the maximum of 375 and grinding reputation until the Night Elves consdered Stigma a god and gave me a pretty, white cat to ride around on as a reward. Can you blame me?

Now, I did try to reroll a shiny new priest and I really tried to like it. I leveled it’s tailoring to 375, and it’s enchanting to 338. I crafted all kinds of sweet gear to wear when I hit 70 and was going to be ready to jump right into raiding.

I was a killer shadow priest ready to take on anything in sight.

There was only one problem: the whole time I was leveling professions and grinding away killing X number of Y bad guy for Z piece of gear. It was the same old game that I was just trying to like, but not actually liking…no matter how much I tried.

So let me put this straight. I’m a World of Warcraft burnout. I still love MMOs though, don’t get me wrong. It’s just after all that time put in, I really didn’t see an end to grinding the same mobs to get the same rep to get the same items. It was time for something fresh. Something I hadn’t seen before.

So what’s next for me? Another MMO of course. I’ve been looking at Final Fantasy XI. It’s a group based MMO and I can play it on my PS3, which is a huge plus right there. Another one I’m checking out is Phantasy Star Universe. It’s another console MMO and it’s seems especially casual, so it’s another tempting option. The there is Guild Wars, which is free to play online…a huge bonus point. Or maybe Age of Conan, which is gory and even has a boob or two. Or maybe….well it’s not important.

There are plenty of good MMOs out there with thriving communities just waiting for me. Maybe I’ll find one with pretty graphics and a deep storyline. Or maybe one with some hardcore PvP action. Or heck, maybe even one that just has friendly people to play with. There are plenty of games to get into, so I don’t feel bad about quitting World of Warcraft.

My name is Dylan Hecht, and I was a World of Warcraft addict. Not anymore though. I’m done playing WoW and I don’t want to go back.

That is, at least until Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

Ahhhh…World of Warcraft. Having recently moved past the 10 million subscriber mark, this juggernaut of MMO domination just keeps on truckin’. So what better way to celebrate the pinnacle of their gaming monopoly than with an expansion? Wrath of the Lich King, announced quite some time ago, keeps seeing small bits of info released. But now, The Nexus War has Begun. Continue Reading

Blizzard confirmed BlizzCon for this year. It will occur on October 10 and 11 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Expect Murlocs, Space Marines, and cosplay of questionable quality/taste. The cosplayer in the attached image looks like the front man from a long forgotten ’70s prog-rock band. Keep on rockin’, guys. Continue Reading

This morning at 12:01 am, Blizzard allowed a GameSpy to reveal a bunch of new info on the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King. They’ve got a ton of content including a look at the new Death Knight class, a few fly-by videos, info on how raids and dungeons will work, and some hands-on impressions of it so far. GameVideos also has an interview with with Jeff Kaplan and J. Allen Brack about the expansion that is definitely worth checking out.

I have to say that even though my interest in WoW has been waning lately, this stuff has gotten me all excited about the game again.  The lack of a real quest chain to unlock Death Knights had me bummed for a bit, but really any excuse to get out there as a Death Knight is welcome. I also dig that every raid in the expansion will have a 10 and 25 man mode. I haven’t been able to check out some of the late raids in Burning Crusade because it’s tough to get 25 people together to play through them. It looks like Blizzard has been listening to what the fans have been saying and it’s just been getting me more excited for the game to come out. I’ll know I’ll be spending the time between now and when it drops crossing my fingers and hoping for a beta invite!

Two men were arrested in China on charges related to gold farming. The pair managed to rake in $200,000 in seven months with a mere 20 employees. One of the commenters on PlayNoEvil believes that one of the two involved was being “swindled” and that investigations pertaining to said swindling may have lead to both of their arrests. Continue Reading