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If you are one of the millions of European WOW players, you may have heard of the new Warlords of Draenor expansion that dropped this week. Unfortunately, if you are one of the millions of European WOW players, you will also have experienced massive wait times that would test even the most experienced British queuer.
Alas, due to everyone wanting a piece of the action and DDOS attacks, my household has also fallen victim to the over-subscribed servers, with Lonesamurai twiddling his thumbs and clicking the ‘refresh’ button like it’s going out of style. In order to retain whatever sanity you may have left, I have put together a list of survival tactics, to be used in your time of need.
Step 1: Consider other Devices
Despite your undying need to explore Draenor, please be aware that other forms of entertainment exist and can be utilised to stave off the bloodlust. Halo for Xbox One has been a successful substitute for the Samurai of the house. Until he fell asleep with controller in-hand on the sofa, and that one time, mid-game when Xbox One decided to install an unwanted update. If one form of media is no longer enough, please consider turning on all electrical appliances in the house. TV, radio and even an alarm clock can trick your mind into believing you are amidst the most crowded raid your garrison has embarked upon.
Step 2: Other People
The thought of interacting with those outside the online world may be daunting, but persevere. You may discover a long-lost friend or spouse living in your home, and suddenly the source of that annoying background noise is explained. Mystery solved? Oh no, that list of chores is swiftly thrust in your face, and you can embark on a new adventure.
You may have also been fortunate enough to copulate with a member of the opposite sex. If so, chances dictate you are a parent, congratulations! Depending on the age of your offspring, they can be an infinite source of entertainment. From the small drunk person known as a toddler, to the stroppy teenager, a few choice words or a laser pointer will become your door to a new world of time-wasting. (These methods could also be employed in Step 3.) Who knew there was a world away from your desk?
Step 3: Escape to the Zoo
For whatever reason, you may discover aforementioned friend or spouse has left for greener pastures. Do not despair! Many humans share their private spaces with furry, scaled and hairy animal friends. Play can be a great bonding exercise for them and you, expanding your horizons and making you feel like the pack leader. (Unless you own a cat-then you are definitely the bitch in that relationship, believe me, I know). If your animal companion no longer functions or harbours a hatred towards you (again, I’m looking at cat owners), stuffed animals can also be a friendly alternative. Just be aware of open windows when you “do their voices”. Doctors can be really concerned about that sort of thing.
Step 4: Sustenance
Your main diet over the last few years is likely to consist of Doritos, chocolate, beer and Mountain Dew. Whilst these foods provide much needed vitamins and minerals, it may interest you to know that other flavours are available. For instance, right now, a wonderful creation known as ‘ice-cream’ may be lurking in the back of the freezer (above the big box that beer lives in). You could also try dusting off the old telephone and getting back in touch with your local take-away establishments. They will be pleased to hear from you, even though they thought you had died and sent pizza to your mother, in memory of their favourite customer.
Step 5: Porn
If you need instructions for this, you are too young to be on the interwebs.
Step 6: Acceptance
If none of the above have been successful, or you realise you are too morbidly obese to leave the desk, there is one fool proof method to pass the time. It is recommended this is used as only a last resort as you will look like a baby, and once it starts, you may be unable to stop;
We’ve heard so much about the BlizzCon movie over the past few years and now’s the time to hear even more. Get ready for the BlizzCon movie panel where we’ll hear about the upcoming movie right from the source.
We found out more about the characters and the movie itself from the panel and heres a run down of points they made about it:
– Everyone on staff is a huge Warcraft fan–they’ve played old school Warcraft, lost days of their lives to World of Warcraft.
– Warcraft has so many great characters and story arcs which made it hard to actually find a story of a suitable length for a movie.
– Original movie was very Alliance-biased, put Orcs in a more negative light. It was important this time for them to show both heroes and the conflict.
– Feels like a live action movie, the camera follows around from their perspective. The VFX for Orcs were hard to nail down, they needed them to be as genuine as humans. They used a lot of motion capture.
– They built sets, locations.
– They created a training session for people to become Orcs–actors had to learn how to become a 500lb creature, nuanced Orcs. Were they noble Orcs or aggressive ones?
– They didn’t want to do motion capture for Garona.
– One of the actors–Robert Kazinsky–actually had over 500 days /played, Death’s Demise, and more. He was in a top 100 World guild!
– Took months of training to learn motion capture. The actors also had to learn how to walk differently, get more in touch with their Orc side.
Blizzard’s legendary MMORPG World of Warcraft will have a 20th anniversary, according to lead developer Ion Hazzikostas. Speaking with CNET, Hazzikostas said he had no doubt that there will be a 20th anniversary for WoW. He also mentioned Blizzard is hard at work planning for future expansions.
“I definitely can’t tell you what our 20th anniversary is going to be. I can tell you there is definitely going to be one. I have no doubt saying that,” he said. “We’re definitely planning into the future, talking about what the next expansion is going to be, and what the one after that is going to be, just in terms of big picture storylines, how can we start setting things up now, where do we want the game to go.”
The game has changed significantly over time. Hazzikostas said the World of Warcraft today isn’t the same game that launched in 2004. He mentioned different graphics, different combat mechanics, and the game’s overall engine is far different.
“It’s clearly not the same game it was 10 years ago, right? The engine is different, all the graphical assets are different, a lot of core combat mechanics have changed,” he said. “It’s hard to pinpoint one turning point when it changed, but we definitely have taken an incremental approach to the pressing problems the game has that we feel we need to solve and what we can add to it that will make it better and deliver the most value to our players.”
World of Warcraft began Nov. 23, 2004. It has gone on to become a cultural phenomenon through board games, books, action figures and plenty more. According to the latest subscriber count, there are 7.4 million paying subscribers for the game at the moment. That count is expected to grow to over 8 million with the release of expansion Warlords of Draenor.
Warlords of Draenor will release for PC and Mac Nov. 13. Temporary world events are currently going on in-game to lead up to the release of the new expansion.
Blizzard announced the cancellation of Project Titan, an MMORPG project that was in development since 2007, back in September. Titan was supposed to be Blizzard’s next big MMORPG to stand beside – or even surpass – World of Warcraft, but the project suffered creative problems.
“We didn’t find the fun,”
Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said.
“We didn’t find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that’s the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no.”
BlizzCon 2014, a convention for all things Blizzard, will be held in Anaheim, Calif. on Nov. 7-8 at the Anaheim Convention Center. The event is expected to reveal additional details concerning Heroes of the Storm, the upcoming Warcraft movie and additional details for Warlords of Draenor.
So what do you think of WoW being around for another ten years?
