Archive for the ‘World of Warcraft’ Category

New World of Warcraft Ads Starring Mr. T and William Shatner

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

I’d love to work for one of the companies that thinks up ads for TV. I imagine them all sitting at a big round table deciding what kind of campaign to go with. They talk about the brand, and brainstorm a bit, trying to think of something clever but direct, debating the merits of each approach. But somewhere at the back of their minds, everyone at that table is thinking “Or… we could just use Shatner!

And so Blizzard have played the Shatner card as part of their latest advertising campaign for World of Warcraft. [via]

Following in Shatner’s footsteps on the slippery slope of embarrassing self-parody is Mr. “Snickers: Get some Nuts!” T.

Blizzard missed out on the grand slam, because they were unable to land Chuck Norris for this campaign, allegedly because he already beat the game. Either that or he’s too busy endorsing Mike Huckabee and making ads for Mountain Dew:

p.s. A note to McDonalds: Johnny Logan does not have the same effect.

World of Warcraft Numa Numa

Wednesday, November 1st, 2006

I was looking for the famous South Park episode, when I came across this Dragostea din Tei rendition:

Ingenious.

World of Warcraft - Trick or Treat

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

The World of Warcraft is gearing up for Halloween. Pumpkins everywhere, and “trick or treats”. The inkeeper in Gadgetzan gave me a gnome mask :)

World of Warcraft Gnome Mask

Selling Out

Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

I just forked out €15 for a three month subscription to Transgaming’s Cedega - the portability product that allows you to run Windows games seamlessly on Linux. As much as I hate to say it, it was money well spent. After hours of recompiling several different versions of Wine, and troubleshooting minor bits and pieces that made some of the newer games just barely unplayable, I decided that it is just too much effort and the time that Cedega would save me is worth more than €5 per month. In other words, spurred on by a blast of nostalgia, I needed a fix of World of Warcraft immediately. Cedega did exactly what it said on the tin, and it surpassed my expectations by running Civilization 4 flawlessly. I’m told that there is even support for Oblivion and Age of Empires III… if only I had the inclination to find the CDs.

Cedega - Linux Gaming

Unfortunately, WoW is just as boring as when I quit playing it over a year ago… only this time around my few buddies in-game are all gone (except for Spaceman). My once-buzzing guild was empty bar one other member… and he was 8 months idle. I’ll try to give it a few hours here and there but I don’t think I’ll ever reach level 60.

How to Cheat in World of Warcraft

Thursday, May 25th, 2006

I don’t know how long this has been around for, but Spaceman just pointed it out to me. Turns out there is still a bug in World of Warcraft allowing items to be duplicated. This site is selling the hack, they claim to be able to duplicate 20+ epic items in 10 minutes. Anyone know if this is a scam, or if its a legit hack? Either way, I don’t endorse it, but at the same time theres no point pretending these things don’t exist.

Interview with Leeeroy Jenkins

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006

Leeroy JenkinsIf you don’t know who Leroy Jenkins is by now then this probably won’t interest you, but GGL’s Carmac has posted a thorough interview with the world’s most notorious paladin. In it, Leeeroy declares that he was not stoned at the time, and reveals exactly what was doing while the tactics were being discussed: reheating his now famous chicken.

He gives no definite answer as to whether or not the farce was staged - my own opinion is that it must have been genuine, as no group so large would consent to wasting hours running a major zone for the sake of a stunt which on paper is not particularly funny. Nobody could have predicted that this would gain such publicity.

Who are you in real life Leeroy?

My name is Ben Schulz, I live in Lafayette, Colorado and I have for my whole life. I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a degree in electric engineering and I currently work as a repair technician for industrial lighting.

Introducing the Draenai

Saturday, May 13th, 2006

Its official now - the new alliance race in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade:

Deeply relieved, Velen gathered the other eredar who had thus far refused to join Sargeras. Naming themselves the draenei, or “exiled ones” in the Eredun language, the renegades barely escaped from Argus, with the Burning Legion only moments behind. Kil’jaeden was furious with what he felt was Velen’s betrayal, and the demon vowed to hunt Velen and the rest of the draenei to the ends of the cosmos if need be

The internets resound with a collective “meh”.

World of Warcraft: The Movie

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

No, not this one, a real WoW movie. From Reuters:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The hugely popular “Warcraft” video games have inspired plans for a live-action feature film set in the epic fantasy universe of orcs, trolls, elves and the undead.

The project is being developed by the creator of the games, Blizzard Entertainment Inc., and producer Legendary Pictures, which acquired the movie rights.

If they don’t have Leroy Jenkins in the lead role then I’m going to boycott.

World of Warcraft Booty Bay

Learn from Lei Fang

Friday, March 17th, 2006

I am still waiting for the day when the Chinese suddenly appear on the scene en masse and tear the competitive gaming world apart like a soggy spring roll. Apparently, ‘electronic heroin’ is frowned upon in China, so Sweden can continue to bask in their glory as the world’s premier gaming nation, for another while at least. But an educating, morally beneficial on-line experience cannot be considered heroin - and this part of the reason why articles such as this one speculate that the new game “Learning from Comrade Lei Feng” is going to overtake World of Warcraft as the biggest MMORPG in the world.

Lei Feng was Mao’s model soldier; China’s “good example”; the selfless “revolutionary screw that never rusts” after whom “Learn from Lei Feng Day” was founded. Falling on 5th March of every year, this is when people get involved in the community and perform good deeds.

Lei Fang

Instead of running around killing Elder Sabretooths, in LFCLF a new player will initially level up by performing low level jobs such as mending socks or sewing.

“Every time you are promoted to a higher level, your clothes will become more average,” he said. “You have to do good deeds in order to upgrade, such as contributing and volunteering on building sites. The more you do, the better and higher you get. Thus boosting your reputation.”

Enemies in the game are “secret agents,” Xinhua said. Players can replenish their strength after battling such evil forces by talking with the Party secretary, en route to a final meeting with Mao himself.

Although all the voices in my head are telling me that this sounds like a terrible game, I am really intrigued. Thank god I’m not Chinese, because I would probably become addicted to this. Its also likely that all of the Lei Feng supporters who renounce the evils of Quake and Counter Strike are in for a bit of a shock when they see the glazed look of addiction on their children’s faces as they sit in front of their computer screens for 9 hours a day, mending electronic socks and helping scripted old ladies cross non-existent roads. I’m hoping that the developers will release a slightly modified version for the rest of the world: “Learning from Chuck Norris”.

At least the increased competition might cause Blizzard to value their customers a bit more. There was some controversy in the World of Warcraft this week over a permanent ban against the level 60 player Infernix, for “Witnessed and confirmed use of third party program - Boting”. Infernix has mirrored his correspondance with Blizzard on the his website, here. The 24 year-old network engineer was running WoW on Wine in Linux, and he was using a common programmable keyboard. I’d love to know Blizzard’s official stance on programmable keyboards, as they even sell custom WoW keyboards (such as the Zboard) on their own online shop. Some people speculate that the fact that he was running under Wine confused whoever it was that investigated this at Blizzard’s end.

Infernix was training weapons by idly fighting a lower level mob which regularly healed itself, while he watched movies on his other monitor. I’ve encountered this exact same thing in other MMORPGs, and the rules are always the same - if you suspect that someone is playing while afk, then a GM must whisper to them, and if they respond, then clearly they are not breaking any rules. Whatever the case, Blizzard’s response (or lack of) was unacceptable - they were tight-lipped in their replies to email, deleting and banning users from the forums when the issue was raised there. Obviously its not a very big deal, but I can see how Infernix would be so angry after spending a lot of money and 1000 hours at this game, to be dumped out of it permanently without so much as a proper reason given.

I would advise him to forget all about the tedium of repetitive levelling and long instance quests, and the annoying 14 year-old uber-competitive Dutch kids who wear sunglasses indoors, bleach their spiked hair, and spam ‘n00b’ at every given opportunity… forget all that and immerse himself in a world without Game Masters who will ban you for no reason… a mythical magical place where the streets are made of cheese: Tamriel. Yes, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is being released next week, and I am looking forward to it very much. Before I leave the subject of WoW for another six months, I have to mention the hilarious “LOTR meets WoW” animated gif that someone had in their signature on the Gamecon forums.

I am from Cork, Ireland. A fan of the Big Lebowski, Mac OS X, Linux, Cork hurling, Munster rugby, Irish football. Interests include QuakeWorld, Python (lately Django), network security, web applications and technology in general.

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