World of Warcraft is obviously popular, but a new infographic (See Below) reveals that it goes further than that – Azeroth’s population surpasses that of most countries.

Despite its slow decline in active subscribers, World of Warcraft is a pretty darn healthy MMO. Blizzard released an infographic today to celebrate the crossing of a threshold: since its release ten years ago, a whopping 100 million accounts have been created. That includes trial accounts, mind, but there’s no denying it’s an impressive census. In fact, it’s more than twice the entire population of South Korea, as the infographic happily points out.

All in all, Azeroth has a population of about 500 million player characters (an average of five per account, by our math), hailing from 244 countries and territories around the world. 52% of those characters are members of the Alliance, while 47% joined the Horde. Since Pandaren characters start out neutral, there’s also 1% of characters who are still on the fence.

It just goes to show that the glorious Alliance wins because of superior numbers. WOOHOO 😀

World of Warcraft’s economy is still booming as well. Every day sees about 2.8 million trades through the Auction House, which was twice the activity of eBay on Cyber Monday a few years ago. All that trade is handled by just 71 auctioneer NPCs in the game world, who each probably deserve a serious raise.

You can see the full infographic in all its glory over at Battle.net. There’s a lot of big numbers, and they’re well-earned; WoW has been more or less the reigning champion of MMOs for a full decade now. Azeroth still has over 7 million active players as of the last report, and something tells me that its community won’t be leaving it anytime soon.

Well, christmas 2013 has come and gone, meaning we all had pressies and do dads under the tree (real or digital)

Here’s a roundup from each of the station team of what they got/treated themselves to this Christmas

Lonesamurai –

Well, no tree for me, so as I spent Christmas in the studios this year, I treated myself to a few things on the STEAM sale, plus I jumped back on World of Warcraft (the Mist of Pandaria upgrade was on special offer and I finally caved and resubbed)

Ok, first off, World of Warcraft – Mist of Pandara. (https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft-mists-of-pandaria)
Yeah, its been out a year now, but patch 5.4 just came out recently and it peaked my hatred of Garrosh Hellscream, so I had to jump at the chance to slap him around abit. The BIGGEST thing I am loving about this expansion is the Pet Battles! Sure, they are a blatant Pokemon rip off, but damn I am loving playing them and they really break up questing in areas aswell
Yeah the questing hasn’t changed much outside of the new areas, but it has a renewed feel to it, especially when you find rare pets to battle aswell
Ok, I concede the community is still incredibly harsh, but ignoring trade chat and sticking to my guild helps
Fun Factor – 7/10, worth upgrading if you like WoW, and the unlimited starter edition is great for people to try the game out

Next up, SimCity Cities of Tomorrow Expansion Pack. (http://www.simcity.com/en_GB/buy/ep1)
I sat and tried this for a few days and honestly, it’s disappointing
The new buildings and changes make very little difference to your cities and the biggest gripe the community has with the game is the size of city plots. Instead of increasing this though, the devs have decided to go upwards instead of outwards and now future city buildings have multiple layers that you can build up
The game still doesn’t feel polished and there are still bugs that have been mentioned loads of times
Fun Factor – 4/10, if you have SimCity and enjoy it, get the expansion, but ONLY if you see it on special offer, it’s not worth full price at all

Crimsonshade –

It’s not very often that I get anything truly techie or videogame-y for Christmas, but this year has to be one of the rare exceptions, since ever since Pokémon X (http://www.pokemonxy.com/en-us/root/) came out worldwide I’ve been mentioning it several times in front of various family members and placed it high on my Amazon Wish List – so I knew, inevitably, it would become my main present this year. Yet I must admit, even up to the moment I tapped that glorious “X” icon, I felt a small sense of trepidation about whether the game would even live up to the lofty expectations I’d given it. Despite all my desires to get the game and enjoy the new 3D aspect and customisability and social options, having covered the game from its initial announcement all the way up to release, I’d also learnt of many features I WASN’T keen on. NPCs rating you on your “stylishness”? Poké-amie?

While I haven’t yet played the game long enough to properly judge either of these features, nor the Horde Battles and other touches I’m also iffy about, after two hours of play I must say I’m already in the mindset that even if they DO turn out to be crap, this is still going to be one of my favourite Pokémon games. One of the reasons for this has to be the battles, which are simply BREATHTAKING. The viewpoints, animations and even the way the Pokémon now faint and are recalled into the Poké Ball on defeat all feel directly lifted from the 3D Console games like Colosseum, Stadium and Battle Revolution. And while the 3D Slider doesn’t actually add much to the scene, throughout every battle now there’s a real sense of depth and of opponents standing a distance away and then getting up close for physical hits. It’s beautiful, in the way I never expected from a handheld Pokémon.

Another thing that pleasantly surprised me is just how extensive customisation of your character is. Oh yes, we already know about how the game now offers three male and three female pre-designed character models to choose from as your initial appearance in the game; and how you can later buy clothing to customise it further. But did you know you can actually give your in-game character two different NAMES? As well as setting your actual character name at the start of the game, pretty early into the actual story you’ll meet up with a group of “friends”, who will give each other nicknames. They’ll then offer to give you one too; and whatever you decide will be the name those NPCs, and a few others across the game, will call you by instead of your Player name. In a homage to early Pokémon games, as well as being able to type this name yourself, the NPCs will suggest three alternatives that you can choose from if you prefer. In a nice touch, these nicknames are generated based on your chosen Player name – for example, I chose to call my character Jay and was offered Big J, Li’l J and J-Meister as options. (In case you wondered, I wrote my own)

I still have a lot more play ahead of me before I can come to a final, fair opinion as to just how good Pokémon X is. But for now, safe to say, Santa was good to me this Christmas.

Predictedcyborg –

For me, the typical family Christmas. By that I mean waking up at my Dad’s spending most of the day there, then going over to my mother’s for Christmas dinner. Mmm, that turkey! Got only one thing I could review.

I like to go to at least one weekend event a year if I can, so what I wanted was a portable speaker that I could plug into my iPod Nano. Thus I received the Kitsound Invader Portable Speaker (http://www.kitsound.co.uk/product/KSINVADER) for Christmas and it is this I shall talk about.
The speaker cost about £15 (I was allowed to choose one myself based on what I needed) and feels fairly solid as well as being small enough to comfortably fit in one hand. The actual speaker part twists out of the base and back in, the base contains the three buttons: on/off, Vol Up and Vol Down. The box lists the three main features of the speaker, one being ‘fluorescent colour’ and it certainly has that. Mine is bright orange which’ll make it easier for me to find it in a dark tent should I choose to go camping again for my next gaming festival event. The battery has ‘up to 6 hours’ of playlife and recharges in 2 hours after being plugged into a USB port through a provided cable which also comes with a jack plug connected to link up more than one of the small speakers in a line for more power.

I haven’t been able to test the 6 hour playtime life of the battery, but for what it is the small speaker is fairly impressive. The audio is clearer than I was expecting to get from something this size and because you can twist down the speaker part into the case it makes the kit nicely portable, which is exactly what I needed from it as well as protecting what is the most delicate part of the thing. The buttons are a little bit stiff, but that’s only a minor complaint in the scheme of the thing. Not sure if I can recommend getting it if you want something amazing, but as a fairly cheap portable speaker that you can stand some chance of locating in a darkish room it’s right up there. I’ll be taking it with me to my next event and hopefully it’ll prove to be durable as well as portable.

7/10 for the small speaker.

Poultergeist0 –

Christmas is always one of my favourite times of year, unlike some people from the station *cough* Lone *cough* (Bah Humbug ~Lone)

So after the season of joy is over and we are all left penniless this January we should all look back over our holiday takings. There are a few bits i’d like to share with all of you, so you can all evaluate how much better your presents were this year.

Let’s kick of with the beginnings of a legend. I’ve decided to start building my own PC (yes I’m still 100% console at heart but I need more editing power in my life) and what’s a PC without a case with MILLIONS OF FANS!!!!! So I got the Cooler Master Cosmos II (http://www.coolermaster.com/microsite/cosmos_ii/design.html).

This master of cooling comes with 10 fans that will quite literally Blow you away (why does my brain come up with this awful excuse comedy) it also has enough space to fit 13 HDD, 4 Graphics cards, motherboard, you neighbours cat and a partridge in a pear tree. Standing a mighty 70.4cm this Titan gives me all the cooling, compartments and buttons that i need.
theirs a load more spec stuff you can check out here http://www.coolermaster.co.uk/product.php?product_id=6781
(but to be honest I don’t understand any of it i just sat spinning the fans for 4 hours Christmas day)

The next two pressies are much more my speed Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Windwaker HD that’s right the biggest Nintendo fan in here is up his WiiU collection to 6 games now… (Shut up it’s a good console)

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (http://www.monsterhunter.com/?lang=en)
Now i’ve always had a hit and miss relationship with the Monster Hunter series, I really wanted to get Monster Hunter G for the PSP and badgered my mum for ages till she got it me for my 13th birthday, but I didn’t understand what to do the game, the game was very text heavy tutorial wise and i never got what to actually do. But now that I’m older and (Contrary to popular Belief) wiser monster hunter 3 is a great experience; planning hunts with friends, scavenging loot and monster parts for armour and specialising yourself in certain weapons to benefit your play style. The game just seems to make sense this time around and although my characters are total green horns I’m having fun researching each monster and planning how to take them down.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate gets a: Well-Cooked Meat/10

Windwaker HD (http://www.zelda.com/windwaker/)
Mwahahaha you don’t think i’m gonna leave this to a micro review do you? oh no my friends you’ll have to check back at the end of the month to see how well i Wake said Wind but if it still feels like the original but with super clean Graphics the it’s gonna be worth getting.

One thing i can talk about is the Collectors item, included with the Windwaker collectors edition comes a 4” tall Ganondorf figure, the figure itself is made from molded colour plastic so should stand the test of time allot better than a painted model, in the UK version the figure comes with a plastic bell jar which to be honest looks nice and will keep the figure safe but it does feel a bit cheap and thin. the US variant however gets no such case but on the flip side the smaller plastic base in my opinion looks better.

The Collectable Wind Waker Ganondorf Figure gets a: Triforce of Power/10

Finally a small aside must go to a book I received from my mother this Christmas, a big blue book about a madman in a box. Well eleven different madmen that have saved the galaxy for the past 1200 years.

Doctor Who: The Vault (http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Doctor-Who-Vault-Marcus-Hearn/?isbn=9780062280633) includes the trials and tribulations of the Doctor and the lovely BBC crew that brought him to our Televisions, Detailing the history behind the original concept to the rebirth in 2005 and beyond.

Doctor Who: The Vault gets a: allons-y/11

Hope you all found yourselves with Glad Tidings this year and keep the spirit all year long.
In the words of Tiny Tim “God Bless Us Everyone”
(is that enough?.. that fills the quota for Christmasy stereotypical bullshit right?.. Cool)
Happy 2014 everyone.

Today we had a few updates from Blizzard, so in their own words…

Blizzard

It’s the New Year, and 2014 is going to be a big one for World of Warcraft. This November marks the game’s 10-year anniversary and the 20–year anniversary of the entire Warcraft series. We’re looking forward to celebrating these milestones with everyone, but in the meantime, we’ve got a few Warlords of Draenor–related updates to share.

 

Preparing for Battle

 

At BlizzCon, we laid out our plans to send you into battle against some of the biggest and baddest enemies in Warcraft history. While the Iron Horde gears up for war on Draenor, back here on earth we’re making preparations for the expansion’s upcoming closed beta test. If you’d like to be considered, now’s a great time to make sure you’re opted in to Warcraft betas and that the hardware specs in your Beta Profile are up to date. (Full instructions can be found here.)

 

 

Report from the Front Lines

 

From the outset, players will find themselves hurled into a chaotic conflict with the Iron Horde at a new Dark Portal on Draenor. The situation for Azeroth is grim, and the war effort needs heroes—from new recruits to retired champions to warriors still tending wounds earned at the Siege of Orgrimmar. To get everyone straight to the action, when you buy the expansion, it will come with a boost to level 90 for one character on your WoW account. We’re getting ready to test the functionality for that on the PTR, and we wanted to provide a quick update on how it will work with the upcoming expansion presales.

 

Warlords of Draenor will be available for pre-purchase digitally Soon™, and we’re once again planning to have standard digital and Digital Deluxe versions (along with a physical Collector’s Edition—more on that at a later date). This time, if you pre-purchase the Digital Deluxe edition you’ll get your exclusive World of Warcraft pet and mount right away, allowing you to bring a little bit of Draenor past into Azeroth present.

 

In addition, when you pre-purchase either digital version, we’re going to grant you your level-90 boost at the time of pre-purchase. That’s a little different from the plan we laid out at BlizzCon, but based on the feedback, it’s obvious that many of you would like the chance to get acquainted with a new class before heading into the expansion. This will also give more players the opportunity to experience the current end-game content and the events leading up to Garrosh’s exodus to Draenor. Maybe you’ll get your Legendary cloak from Wrathion and level 90–100 Heirloom weapon in the process.

 

​

 

Bolster the Ranks

 

We’ve also heard feedback from players that they’d be interested in boosting multiple characters to 90, including alts they play with friends on other factions and realms. We’ve been evaluating ways to make that possible without having players go through roundabout methods (such as purchasing multiple boxes and performing multiple character transfers), and in the near future we’ll be testing out a feature that gives you the option to purchase a character upgrade directly. We’ll have more information to share later—including details on our character-upgrade plans for Asian regions where players don’t buy expansion boxes—but you’ll start seeing pieces of the process soon on the PTR, so keep an eye out.

 

We’re looking forward to the closed beta test, and we’re excited we’re able to give players their character boost immediately upon pre-purchasing—hopefully that will help tide you over while you’re waiting for the epic battle for Draenor to begin. Stay tuned for more information on presales and our beta plans, and we hope you’ll join in and help us test this stuff out when it hits the PTR.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning closed down this Wednesday (18th Dec 2013), when the licensing agreement Electronic Arts had with Games Workshop ended. A developer who worked on the game says there is a way to preserve its world in a kind of museum-exhibit way, should EA choose to release it.

Andrew Meggs, who was the lead client engineer for Warhammer Online when he was at Mythic Entertainment, says there was an option to run the game without a server in an unreleased, developer-only build of the Warhammer Online client. If EA released this, then fans could run around in the virtual world, explore it and remember the good times.

“There were no login or character selection screens,” Meggs wrote on his blog. “There were no NPCs or other players. There was no gameplay of any kind. It was just you and the entire world spread out before you. You could fly around like Superman, or teleport anywhere at will.”

An MMO without other players or quests is not an MMO, and Meggs isn’t pretending this would be one. He’s more suggesting it as a memorial to Warhammer Online’s five year run. “It’s a double-clickable museum exhibiting much of what WAR was, so it won’t be forgotten completely. It’s an effort by all of us, as developers, to preserve a living record as our transient medium is created and destroyed. I can’t do this; I left behind the code when I left EA. But there are people inside EA who can easily make this happen.”

It’s a nice thought but it leaves me feeling like the mere suggestion creates a no-win situation to crap all over EA, as if that’s not a forum pastime already. First, they’d have to release it for free, because otherwise, the story becomes “EA Wants Warhammer Fans to Pay for an MMO with No Quests or NPCs.” Secondly, this is a licensed game, which means the licensor would have to consent to all of this, and the agreement has expired. I’m guessing that contract is pretty absolute on proscribing EA from continuing this game in any form past the expiration date.

Closing an MMO is always painful to those who played it. Sometimes it’s best to just say goodbye and move on, rather than dredge up another reason to be disappointed by the company shutting things down.

WAR in a Bottle [Shiny Toys/Andrew Meggs, via Polygon]

Free browser game also an international success

All players of My Free Zoo will receive an extraordinary log-in bonus

Bamberg, December 19th 2013. German developer and publisher of free-to-play browser games Upjers is delighted about 8 million registered players in My Free Zoo. This highly positive number confirms the developer team’s efforts to implement new content into the game on a weekly basis. By way of thanks for their loyalty, all players of My Free Zoo (www.myfreezoo.com) will receive a unique log-in present.

My Free Zoo is celebrating its 8 millionth registered player. This success is due to enthusiastic zoo directors all the world over, and of course to the hardworking developers of My Free Zoo. Since its release not even two years ago, more than 100 animals have been added to the zoo simulator. Among these are several extraordinary specimen, such as the white lion or the Western Crowned Pigeon.

Almost weekly, new animals and new features are implemented into the game. Besides the possibility to breed animals, organizations have been introduced to the game. In these organizations, the players can help out their fellow organization members in their virtual zoos as veterinarians, mechanics, shippers and as environmental officers.

Upjers would like to say thanks to all 8 million players in My Free Zoo. That’s why all of them will receive a unique log-in present with their next log-in into the game. In accordance with this cold season, every player who logs into the game up until January 9th will receive an Ice Castle.

My Free Zoo can be played for free on https://en.upjers.com/my-free-zoo.