More April Fools

 

A couple days ago when we wrote about April Fools in Second Life, Spiffy Voxel would comment there was much more.

 

There were some other good Second Life pranks yesterday. The biggest one was the reveal of the 'revolutionary' new mesh body that Salt & Pepper had been teasing... which turned out to be a flat cardboard avatar. However, the joke appears to be on Salt and the other creators who got involved, as both Cardy and Cardo proved to be rather popular! 🤣 They should definitely be easier to make clothing and accessories for, which is perhaps a commentary on the state of working with all the other mesh bodies and heads out there...

Gorean Whip Radio announced their sale to iHeart Radio — no more DJ interruptions, nothing but Top 40 Big Band songs on repeat. 🤣 Apparently, a few people fell for it, while others (like myself) played along. 🙂

More subtle, however, was the April Fool pulled by Luke Rowley, owner of the Primfeed photo-sharing social network — various menu items were rendered in Comic Sans yesterday. 😉

 

Of the Salt and Pepper avie, someone on Virtualverse would say, "It was a very elaborate April Fool's joke. And folks are either 'That was a good one' or they are very very angry on the interwebz about it. However, it is my new shopping event avatar. It's pretty cool. There are clothes and hair for it as well"

 

In gaming there were a couple April Fools I heard about. One was an "Out Meow" for Ark Survival Ascended, a cat update which showed cats going about whistfuly around, either attacking players or casually destroying things without a care. For World of Warcraft, there was the 11.4.1 Patch Notes, "The More Herein," A play on the latest expansion "The War Within."

If there’s anything we know about WoW players, it’s that you want more. In this patch, we’re adding more of everything. More dungeons, more classes, more races, more pets and more mounts and more flight paths and more words on the screen. Unless you want more empty spaces, in which case—we've cut the words and we’re adding more empty spaces! “More more more” is our motto. Read on for more.

Among the "updates" was the new raid "The Deeper Cave Below The Bottom."

After years of going down into Azeroth, we’re going to go below that! What’s below the deepest depth? Only our friends the Digger Miners know for sure, so we’re accompanying them as they go straight down to The Bottom and then go down from there.

In the Deeper Cave Below the Bottom, there’s no light whatsoever except when you cast spells, and the extreme temperature and pressure means the enemies that live there are in a really bad mood! Defeat the lowest final boss—Ugh the Complainer—and look around on the floor of his chamber. Is that a door that leads downward??

 

On a personal note, one friend of mine commented "We need to cancel April Fools Day until sanity returns to the world." I disagree because when has the world ever been truly sane? There have always been evil men, and women, up to evil schemes, there has always been corruption, and there have always been selfish people out only for themselves. If we took ourselves too seriously all the time, we'd go nuts. So let's all take a little time to laugh.

 

Happy April Fools.

 

Bixyl Shuftan

Looking Foxy in World of Warcraft

Last month, I mentioned I was on my way to getting a Vulpera character in the World of Warcraft MMO. Well, finally last week, I met the requirements, and did the questline in which my demon hunter and a few of the foxfolk helped out the Horde with a few problems, notably a peon strike, and afterwards were welcomed by Warchief Baine as members of the Horde. So finally that one friend of mine who's been egging me on now has a new foxy teammate. Since Vulpera had been going about making the best of what the desert had to offer, perhaps it might be appropriate for one to try and make the elements work for him. Not to mention earth magic "rocks." So I made my first one a shaman.

So what now? I'll probably be too busy for the next month covering the rest of the Relay season and the Second Life Birthday to spend too much time in Warcraft. Still, it's nice to know I can now be foxy in Azeroth as well as Second Life. Not that being a Tauren, Worgen, or Pandaren was so bad.

As Nydia would say, "good gaming to you."

Bixyl / Bixii

World of Warcraft: Quest For Vulpera

So what do Second Life residents do when they're not playing Second Life? Many of my friends play online games. And recently a new playable race has gotten the attention of some on World of Warcraft, to play as a foxlike Vulpera. So how can one be a fox in Warcraft as well as in Second Life? Well, it's not easy, and yours truly is only partially there.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

News and Commentary: More on Blizzard's China Controversy

This month, the players of the game "World of Warcraft" are celebrating it's fifteenth anniversary, with in-game presents, events, and bonus experience. But there's been a dark cloud over the celebrations. It was last month that the company that owns Warcraft, Blizzard/Activision, banned a player from Hong Kong in another game, Hearthstone, after when given a chance to speak on a televised stream, he called for the freedom of the people of his city. Since the Newser's first article on the subject, the situation has continued to develop. And finally at Blizzard's annual convention, the company President addressed the issue.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

News and Commentary: Blizzard's Removing Hong Kong Gamer From Tournament Sparks Calls for Boycott, Debate on Free Speech

For years, American companies have been trying to get into the Chinese market. With over a billion people, the potential number of customers for a large business is huge. However, the country is under the control of a dictatorship that does not react well to criticism or remarks in opposition to it's goals. It frequently makes demands to such companies, and penalizes those already in for perceived comments or actions against it. The debate flared up again this week thanks to three stories in the news. One of them was a tournament of players of the Hearthstone game, which is owned by the same company that owns the still noted MMO game World of Warcraft. When one winner was interviewed, he proclaimed his support for the protestors in the city of Hong Kong. Blizzard soon reacted with actions many of its customers have found troubling, including yours truly whom had recently just signed up for Warcraft again after an extended break.

Read the story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Anthropomorphic Influences

It's well known that fans of anthropomorphic characters, aka "Furries" have been a part of Second Life about since it started. But they're also a part of many games. "World of Warcraft," the old powerhouse of MMOs, had a few anthro races. "Skyrim" has two. And more. Mods of popular games allow you more options at playing a nonhuman character. Nydia Tungsten recently had a few things to say about the issue.

Read Nydia's story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

"I May Be Done" The Husband of A Warcraft Couple Talks about His Wife's Passing

We often think of computer gamers as immature loners, and when they do find someone and get married, what comes to mind is the game being a source of friction between a computer-free wife and game-addicted husband. But there are couples whom happily game together. Recently however, one such gamer has had to deal with the grief and lost as his wife, whom played "World of Warcraft" with him for years, had passed away. Feeling some of her friends would wonder why she was gone, he posted his feelings on the Blizzard forums. He didn't expect the outpouring of sympathy that followed.

Read more in "Other Grids, MMOs, and Games."

Game Review: World of Warships

Nydia Tungsten is back with her first gaming review in a while. Here, she looks at "World of Warships." The game is from Wargaming.net, the makers of the popular "World of Tanks." Gameplay is a little like the noted tank game as there are units of different strengths and one with long range fire. But "the other WoW" as it's sometimes called is not simply the tank game moved to the water.

Read Nydia's review in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

World of Warcraft Drops to 5.5 Million Active Players, Blizzard Will No Longer Report Numbers

Shortly after the release of the total subscription numbers of "Guild Wars 2" put into question if "World of Warcraft" was still the top MMO, on November 2, Activision/Blizzard announced in it's quarterly report that it's subscriptions "remained relatively stable, ending the quarter at 5.5 million subscribers." Although a slight drop compared to it's earlier plummet from ten million to 5.6 in several months, it was another sign that the game's best days are long behind it.

As it turns out, this will likely be the last time World of Warcraft's current numbers will be given out. Blizzard stated it will do so no more, "this is the last quarter that we plan to provide subscriber numbers," the company stated. "There are other metrics that are better indicators of the overall Blizzard business performance."

It seems even Blizzard has concluded "World of Warcraft" will no longer have draw it once had.

For years since it was released in 2003, "World of Warcraft" was more than just a game. It wasn't just the leader in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game genere, it was seen as *the* game. It became a part of pop-culture, characters in TV shows playing the game, stories of people playing the game until falling unconscious from exhaustion, and more. Many of it's features, such as players being divided into two opposing factions, talent trees, quests and quest giving NPCs, became more or less standard in MMOs as a whole. With over 12 million at it's peak, companies tried and failed to come up with a "WoW killer," and instead settled into nich markets, such as based on popular sci-fi franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, and developed along the "Free to Play" model instead of requiring a montly subcription.

Of the news, Hamlet Au commented "The King is dead." That's a bit of an exaggeration as the game is still number one in it's genre. "World of Warcraft" isn't entirely done in popular culture. In June 2016, Legendary Pictures will be showing a movie based on the game "Warcraft" in theaters nationwide. And there is another expansion of the game in the works, "Legion." But Blizzard's announcement is clearly a turning point for the once unmatched MMO that will be seen less and less for what's going on with it now, and more and more as a historic game like "Doom," "Pac Man," and "Space Invaders" were the games of their times.

Sources: Gamespot,  Breitbart,

Bixyl Shuftan

Gaming News: Steam Suddenly Ending Modder Payment System, WoW Numbers Drop, A Cheater's Public End

There's been some interesting gaming news lately. The latest numbers of World of Warcraft are out. Guild Wars 2 got the attention of gamers from all around when a cheater people complained about on the forum had a youtube of his fate posted there. And we finally look into Steam's payment system for those wanting to make mods for the still popular Skyrim game, which was taken down after only for days. One of the problems with it, some brought up, was how Skyrim's modders were being treated by the game's creators.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

Gaming News: WoW Tokens, Star Wars Galaxies Jedi Hunt Idea, and Antilia No Longer an MMO

While the Newser has reported on events in Second Life, we've heard about some interesting and noteworthy events in the world of gaming. Here's three things that caught our attention, concerning World of Warcraft, the old "Star Wars Galaxies," and Antilia.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

Reader Submitted Pictures: WoW Selfies

"World of Warcraft," the largest of MMOs, has been continuing to do well with it's latest expansion, "Warlords of Draenor." Recently came their latest patch, 6.1, which involved a few fixes and updates, including a Garrison quest for a certain gadget, the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera (video).

The game has always found ways to sneak in elements of pop culture for chuckles and fun, though this is less subtle than most. It's also a way for some players to have a neverending source of chuckles, though others groaned that not even WoW was immune to the selfie craze.

One can take pictures next to some important folk, such as King Varian Wrynn in the picture above. Or perhaps for a Worgen, a picture under a full moon would be appropriate.

And who might this charming lady Worgen be? None other than Alleara Snoodle. A highly skilled Second Life content creator whom was once involved in the Metanomics SL TV show and the Chilbo community, she later withdrew from both due to real life events. Although not appearing as often on the Grid as she once did, she still does, in addition to other places.

Besides the SELFIE camera, there have been other hapenings in WOW, such as the sale of a special pet goat of which the money went to the Red Cross.

World of Warcraft News: Ten Year Statue Gift and "Veteran" Accounts

There's been a couple recent news stories about World of Warcraft recently. One was a slight change to how currently inactive accounts are handled. While there has been a kind of Free-to-Play version of the game for a while, such players operate under a number of restrictions, such as not being able to go beyond level 20. And once a player has ever had a paid subscription, they can't so much as log in.

In the upcoming patch of the game, expired subscriptions will be changed to a "Veteran Edition" in which characters up to Level 20 can still be logged in. Such characters will still be under some restrictions, but will be able to join guilds. Characters beyond Level 20 will not be accessible under Veteran. Just how useful this small change is has been a matter of opinion among those responding to the post in the forums. But considering ten million people at last count had paid accounts, it's unlikely that the game will be nudging much closer to free to play.

What's gotten more attention is the present that Blizzard entertainment is giving it's most devoted customers. On January 21, Blizzard announced "As a way to thank our most loyal World of Warcraft players, we are sending a physical gift to players that have stuck with us since the very beginning." These players would have to have had started playing within 60 days of when they game was released in 2004, and kept up their subscriptions without interruption.

That the announcement had the keyword "statue" was a clue as to what it was, and as it turns out, it's a small bronze statue of an orc riding a wolf. It's gotten no shortage of comments. Some have commented considering the cash such players have sent Blizzard over time, $15 a month for 120 months is about $1800, Blizzard clearly got the far better of the bargain. Supporters counter that Blizzard didn't have to send anything, and it's better than a simple "thank you" card. It's also notable that a number of these statues have popped up on eBay, sometimes with prices in the hundreds of dollars or even over a thousand, one being offered for 2,500.

On another note, the Newser will not be doing a review of "Warlords of Draenor," at least not anytime soon.

Sources: Cnet, PC Gammer,

Bixyl Shuftan

Ten Years of World of Warcraft

It was ten years ago last month in which Blizzard Entertainment released "World of Warcraft," the fantasy MORPG that would soon go beyond it's competition and dominate it's genre of games ever since. Despite the passage of time, interest remains high in the game as evidenced by the success of it's latest expansion. Bixyl Shuftan takes a look back at the game's history and a little at why "WoW" was the success it's been.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

World of Warcraft Numbers Soar to Over Ten Million

Over time, "World of Warcraft," the world's most popular Multiplayer Online Game, has declined in numbers since it's peak of twelve million in 2010. It's numbers would briefly climb after an expansion, then fall again. While still the envy of other game companies, by June 2014 numbers had fallen to 6.8 million, about half of it's peak.

It was known that the latest expansion "Warlords of Draenor" was providing some boost, as 600,000 gamers signed up ahead of time. As it turns out, far more did. On November 19, Blizzard announced that the number of people subscribing to their game had passed ten million. "Blizzard Entertainment today announced that as of the first 24 hours of the expansion’s availability, more than 3.3 million copies had sold-through^† and the game’s global subscriber base had passed 10 million, with growth across all major regions." Blizzard had not seen these numbers since early 2012.

Mike Fulter of Game Informer commented, "I strongly suspected WoW would rebound, but not by this much. Whether Blizzard can hold onto these returned players in the long-term remains to be seen. Even if numbers start to trail off once more, it shows that there is still great interest in new content for the decade-old MMO." The magazine also mentioned that day that Activision, which is part of the same corporation as Blizzard but exists as a separate entity, settled a lawsuit concerning a buyout a year ago.

The opening day of the fifth expansion of the game was plagued with technical problems, blamed in part due to a Denial of Service attack traced to China. The size of the numbers of people signing up suggests that the problems were at least somewhat less due to hackers, and somewhat more about the expansion being a bigger success than Blizzard expected.

Sources: PC Gamer, Game Informer, Blizzard 

Bixyl Shuftan

Release of "Warlords of Draenor" Marred by Denial of Service Attack

For months, fans of "World of Warcraft," the most subscribed to MORPG, looked forward to it's latest expansion, "Warlords of Draenor." Due on Thursday November 13, a number who had let their subscriptions expire signed back on. In October, Blizzard announced membership of the game had climbed to 7.4 million, a 600,000 increase over it's June total of 6.8 million. So on the day of the release, people got their copies in game stores or downloaded them straight from Blizzard, and logged on ...

And for many, they found out they couldn't get in!

The most populated of the servers were locked. At times *all* of them were locked. This mean that anyone trying to get in would instead be placed in a queue and made to wait until enough players who were already in had logged off. This could sometimes take an hour or longer to the chagrin of players.

So what happened? Part of the problem was so many players trying to log on at once, as has been the case with each expansion release which has seen some troubles. But as it turned out there was another element. Blizzard's World of Warcraft servers were the target of a huge  Denial of Service attack. According to WoWInsider, the attacks were traced to China. The assault reportedly continued into the early morning the next day.

In no way is Blizzard responsible for the server outages on this scale - responsibility rests with the script kiddies and bot net controllers. It's hard to know just how big this attack is, but with the sustained issues it's causing and the severity of response from Blizzard, it's safe to assume that it's BIG. Battle.net is a hardened Internet service that has withstood onslaughts like this before. For it to fail at such a critical juncture is nothing but catastrophic for the short term, and could have long term implications.

Among Blizzard's actions were lowering the maximum populations allowed on high population servers, which meant high waiting times for players there. The lower levels continued for the weekend. Saturday saw queues for a number of servers still, and Sunday saw at least one having to limit the people coming in part of the time.

There was no shortage of complaints in the thread about the launch update delays. While a few of the complaints were directed at the source of the attack, most in the first dozen pages were directed at Blizzard, many blaming not an attack by hackers but by bad planning,  "You are not prepared, Blizzard." "We're paying customers and can't even access our characters to play. We're being cheated out of our money!" "Microsoft's XBox Live service makes you look like rookies." There were a few wondering if the hacks were a made up cover story by Blizzard to excuse their problems. Some people joked about it, such as the "Hallowed Gaming" gaming satire website doing a parody article about Blizzard charging a fee to avoid the queues.

For those whom made it in, they still weren't completely in the clear. Many reported bugs and glitches, notably around the garrisons, one for the Alliance and one for the Horde, which players kept having to go to.

Blizzard has dealt with technical snafus before, notably the "plague" early in it's history in which high level players hit traveled to population centers and spread it to lower level players whom quickly succumbed in large numbers.

It's difficult to say exactly what the long-range consequences of the launch day hack attack will be. World of Warcraft has had huge numbers of devoted fans which have kept it going for the past ten years. But over time it has declined from the double digit millions it once had. While it was expected that people would drop out after a while after some time of exploring Draenor and other new content, it's possible the weekend of long server queues will stick to the minds of many who will let their game time expire earlier than planned, resulting in the number of players declining sooner and to lower numbers than it otherwise would have.

Sources: Geek.com, WoW Insider, WoW Forums 

Bixyl Shuftan

Meanwhile, Back in Azeroth (or Draenor)

And so it begins. After months of anticipation, "Warlords of Draenor," the latest expansion for the popular "World of Warcraft" Multiplayer Online Game, was finally available for sale Thursday November 13. And yours truly was among those getting it.

While there is much good to say about the game, unfortunately there was one major snag. It seems Blizzard was the subject of a major Denial Of Service attack originating from China. The result's been huge queues  for players waiting to log in, and a lot of complaints.

So stay tuned for more information while I try to get my Worgen, pictured above just moments after he stepped through the portal, about this world familiar to this WoW veteran, yet so new as well.

Bixyl Shuftan

Meanwhile, Back in Azeroth

After a break that's lastesd for months, I finally made the decision to give World of Warcraft another try, signing up just in time to get the Horde chopper. So what's going on Azeroth besides trick or treats and trying to clobber the Headless Horseman? The recent update preceding the upcoming expansion in a few weeks gives players a taste of what they'll be facing. The Iron Horde is marching into the Blasted Lands where the Dark Portal is, and both Horde and Alliance are in it's path.

For players whom have already clobbered Hellscream, the rewards won't match the gear they've likely gotten. But those whom haven't quite reached the gear level needed to take on the Siege of Ogrimmar will get a boost that should allow them to skip a couple raid instances. And thanks to the update, finally Ogrimmar no longer looks like Hellscream is still in charge.

So is yours truly back in Azeroth to stay? We'll see. The upcoming expansion isn't exactly getting lots of chatter among my circle of friends.

Bixyl Shuftan

Next "World of Warcraft" Expansion to be Released November 13

Blizzard recently announced the date for when the latest expansion for "World of Warcraft" is set to hit the store shelves, a few months from now in November. As the day "Warlords of Draenor" will be made available to WoW fans approaches, details about what the update offers have been revealed. The champion of the MMOs has also made news in other ways, sponsoring a real-life motorcycle building contest, and honoring a late entertainer whom was among it's players.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

Goodbye Azeroth: Leaving "World of Warcraft," For Now

In March 14th, my World of Warcraft account was frozen after the amount of paid time expired. This was the official end of my time in Blizzard's World of Warcraft after over seven years.

It had actually been over a week since I had last played the game. There were a few reasons for my decision. One was financial, as I was helping a friend support something inworld so there was the "put something in, take something out" factor. There was also the plot development. The upcoming expansion involves a bit of time travel, which I had mixed feelings about. I had just clobbered the tyrant Garrosh Hellscream, which was the closest I had come to a "Win" condition.

But the most important reason, the majority of my friends have "moved on" from World of Warcraft. Almost no one else from the Sunweaver guild pops on, or the Angels' gamer group. A few friends still pop on, which was the big reason I was still staying on.

I'm not alone. From it's peak of 15 million subscribers, the game has slowly dwindled in size. As of it's last count, it was officially 7.8 million. This is actually a rise from 7.6 million from late 2013. But long term it's been continuing to shrink. People have been heading over to newer games, many of which have free to play options. Still, Blizzard's hit game will likely stay king of the MMOs for a few more years.

I've had some happy memories here, joining up in December 2006, at the urging of two freinds whom had a couple Tauren, Outback and Tinatwotoe in the Dath'Remar Australian server, the three of us had a number of adventures and laughs in a Horde guild, notably with a Troll hunter named Juna. Eventually, they had to go, but the fun continued with the Sunweavers and their Alliance guild. Over time, I've seen a number of changes, such as the four major expansions. Flight brought into the game, new lands, new races, and the original continuents given a new look. I've been though quite a bit from the game.

As I stated, I still have a few friends playing Warcraft, so perhaps someday I'll return to Azeroth.

Bixyl Shuftan