7/27 is coming soon friends. I’ll see you online. → Read More
Online gamers received quite the scare last week when Blizzard announced it would require message board posters to use their real names. This was to be done in order to fight the scourge of online anonymity. The Internet freaked out, of course, so much so that Blizzard eventually changed its mind. I mention this up to not open old wounds, but to take the time to remind you of this: there are other… → Read More
In loving memory of the greatest message board thread in the history of the Internet: the nearly 2,500 page monster discussing the now-rescinded plan to use real names on the Blizzard message board. May the server it’s hosted on be donated to the Library of Congress. → Read More
Well, well, well. Blizzard has announced that real names WILL NOT be required to post on the official forums after all. Your level one alt is safe! → Read More
If Blizzard wanted to spark a discussion, well, job done. The company’s plan to bring Real ID to its message boards has done nothing if not freak people out. Do keep freaking out. → Read More
Let’s get one thing straight: Blizzard is totally in the right here. You’ll recall that they announced yesterday that the era of anonymous commenting on their message boards will come to an end with the release of StarCraft II. Note that all of your current posts on their message board will forever remain under your character’s name. (Don’t worry, Fernando Zorres, your secret is safe with me.)… → Read More
Kudos to Blizzard for putting an end to Anonymous Cowards everywhere. Well, at least on their own official forums. Starting with the release of StarCraft II in a few weeks, Blizzard WILL DEMAND~! you use your real name to participate in the forums. Oh sure, you’ll also be able to have your in-game character’s name displayed alongside your real name, but don’t let that fool you: accountability has… → Read More
T-minus one month and counting till the release of StarCraft II, and we’re starting to see officially branded peripherals hit the store shelves. Here’s one such peripheral: the SteelSeries StarCraft II Limited Edition Zboard. As the name suggests, it’s based on the company’s Z Board, except, you know, StarCraft-ified. → Read More
“We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology.” Thank you, finally! See, Blizzard gets it. The company’s co-founder, Frank Pearce, recently told the good folks at Video Gamer that he thinks the fight against DRM is misguided. Not that he supports end-users going around torrenting his games till the end of time, but that the way to “beat” piracy is… → Read More
When I read this headline, I thought there must have been some mistake. I mean, as we all know, StarCraft is the life-blood of South Korea. How can Blizzard release a gimped version of the game over there? 1up calls it “heavily edited,” and perhaps “censored” is as much an overstatement as “heavily edited” is an understatement. The game was given a provisional AO rating over there, and now… → Read More
You can now monitor your World of Warcraft auctions using your iPhone (or iPod touch). A new version of Blizzard’s Armory App now gives users the ability to tap into the game’s Auction House, wherein gamers can keep tabs on their sales of copper stacks and see how much Spellweave is going for. → Read More
This prototype for Starcraft was found by the son of an old-school Blizzard programmer — it dates from the early ’80s. Really quite shocking how advanced it is for the time! Check out this footage of a PvT game! → Read More
Whoa there. Blizzard just announced that its Battle.net service will soon hook into Facebook, “linking the world’s premier online gaming platform with the world’s most popular social platform.” The synergy begins with the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, which is currently scheduled for release in July. → Read More
Hold onto your knickers, everyone, for Blizzard has announced, via fancy e-mail, the release date for StarCraft II: July 27, 2010. So, slightly less than three months from now. You may freak out now. → Read More
Yup, Blizzard is selling World of Warcraft mounts now. Two of them have just gone live on their little online store there, Celestial Steed and Lil’XT. The former is $25 and the latter is $10. → Read More
Blizzard just announced, via fancy e-mail, that there will, indeed, be a collector’s edition of StarCraft II, whenever it comes out. (No, Blizzard has not announced a release date yet, but says it will “soon.”) Anyhow, the collector’s edition will come with a 176-page art book, a USB thumb drive loaded with the original StarCraft and its expansion pack Brood War, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a CD… → Read More
Look what just showed up in my inbox! No details were mentioned, dates or anything like that, but I did submit my Battle.net account to the giant database in the sky. ¡Muy emocionante! → Read More
Just a friendly heads-up: today is Blizzard day on Amazon Deals or whatever it’s called. You know, new deals on the hour, every hour till 9pm PT. The deals are only revealed as they go live. I’m thinking Blizzard-related keyboards and mice and the like, probably even a game or two in there. → Read More
There are people out there who take to World of Warcraft’s Auction House like NYU Stern graduates take to Wall Street. The Auction House, for those unawares, is a place where WoW gamers can buy and sell in-game items using in-game currency. It can be incredibly complicated, and there are entire guides dedicated to “playing” the Auction House in order to make money. I’ve made a fair bit of coin by… → Read More
It’s earnings call season, and while no news is more shocking than the fact that WWE will drop the Survivor Series, there’s something for World of Warcraft fans. And, really, who isn’t a fan of World of Warcraft. Anyhow, yeah, Cataclysm will come out this year. We’ve (and by “we” I mean the WoW community) pretty much assumed as much since the expansion was first announced, but now the money men… → Read More
You’ll recall that, a few months ago, we mentioned that Blizzard, in collaboration with Future (the publisher responsible for Edge in the UK, among other magazines), would be creating a World of Warcraft-themed magazine. It’s called World of Warcraft: Official Magazine and I just received the very first issue, Winter 2009. From a visual standpoint, the magazine is gorgeous. It’s like looking at a… → Read More
SteelSeries continues to work that IP license with Blizzard by announcing two new products aimed directly at gamers: a Zboard StarCraft 2 keyset, and a World of Warcraft: March of the Scourge mouse pad. → Read More
You can run, but you can’t hide (in cyberspace). In one of the strangest stories of 2009, it’s been reported that Blizzard worked with law enforcement to help catch a drug dealer. → Read More
Oh, look, I’m taking a single remark from a lengthy interview and making an entire post about it. It concerns Blizzard, the famed developer of World of Warcraft and Diablo. You may think of Blizzard as a PC developer, but that ignores games like The Lost Vikings. Anyhow, Blizzard has said in an interview with Gamasutra, which always does good stuff, that it is not averse to making a console game… → Read More
Tuesdays usually stink for World of Warcraft. The servers go down early in the morning for maintenance, and then stay down well after the scheduled time more often than you’d care to see. Today doesn’t stink, since Patch 3.3 is indeed dropping. I cannot wait to leave the terribly fancy TC/CG office, get home, fire up the game, then PUG till the sun comes up. → Read More
World of Warcraft turns 5-years-old today. Back on November 23, 2004, a year before the current generation of video game systems even began (with the launch of the Xbox 360), Blizzard released the massively multi-player online game at a time when massively multi-player online games were still largely the haunt of hardcore gamers, people with fast Internet connections who were willing to pay $15… → Read More
Even though Starcraft II was playable more than a year ago, Blizzard has still been extremely selective about the assets that they release. This latest video shows off the “Story Mode,” also known as the game, in which you can see a few characters driving the story, directing the flow of the game, and so on. The graphics, as we know, are very reminiscent of the original, yet polished and in high… → Read More
Just a friendly remind to all my fellow World of Warcraft players. You need to migrate your account to a Battle.net account by the end of the day today, lest you’re unable to login. → Read More
Really big World of Warcraft news today, friends. (Why do I write so much about WoW? Oh, you know, it’s just the biggest, most successful MMO in history. Not writing about it would be like covering tech with mentioning Microsoft or Apple.) Blizzard is now selling in-game pets that you can buy with real money, $10. We’re talking cash money. Dollar dollar bill, y’all. → Read More
Back before I started playing World of Warcraft (because of something that was work-related, incidentally), I used to tease my then-roommate about playing it well into the night, every night. I was a freshman at a certain horrendously expensive school, and my gaming started and stopped with my Xbox; I had no time for time-sink PC games. Not my roommate, no sir. The day the game came out—he… → Read More
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