To Vista or not to Vista?

In a few hours, Microsoft will release the next incarnation of their operating system. Unless you have taken a self-imposed exile from all web, written, and possibly television media for the last twelve months, you should have heard about this.

The big question is if an upgrade to Vista this close to release is warranted at this stage. First however, a word of disclosure. I have been a Windows developer since the release of Windows 3.0. I’ve worked on a substantial number of software applications in the last seventeen years. However, I’m not a Windows Fanboi by any means. I also own a Mac notebook, and a Linux box. I’m into the best tool for the job.

Now having said that. Don’t upgrade to Vista at this time. Especially if you are a gamer. The platform is simply not ready for it at this stage. Read this article at Techgage for details. The major points are as follows:

1. The performance of some games is less on Vista than on XP with an equivalent machine.
2. Microsoft removed DirectSound and DirectSound 3D from Vista. This means that existing games with surround sound and other effects will revert to plain old stereo until new drivers are made up that allow these games to use the new OpenAL support.
3. New drivers for a new platform. It will take time for these new drivers to get the bugs ironed out. XP drivers are solid and mature, the Vista drivers will need some work. This work should also help with some of the performance issues.

My own point of view is that it is often simply worth the wait until the first service pack is released. If you are running on a solid XP system that suits your needs there is no need to upgrade, and lets face it, World of Warcraft runs well on XP. If you buy a new game that demands Vista or DX10, Age of Conan comes to mind here, then by all means upgrade.

I was feeling tempted by the lure of the Vista machine. I have decided now to wait until the first service pack is released, or perhaps later this year when AoC is released. I suppose if I buy a new machine before that time, I’ll get it then too.

A Great Hunters Weapon

DM Osbon put me onto a site where you can create your own World of Warcraft items. While looking through it, I came across this little beauty.

The best bow in the game

It works much like any Hunter Weapon. Equipping it draws aggro from every non-hunter class in the game. Use increases the frequency of Nerf posts on the World of Warcraft Official Forums by a factor of 100.

A must have for any self respecting Hunter.

Age of Conan Delayed

Famine, the community coordinator for the Age of Conan forums has posted that Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures will now be released on the 30th of October, 2007. This is a delay from the original release schedule of Quarter 2 (Apr – Jun) this year.

Unfortunately, this means that it will be another four months before we can crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their women.

However, there’s a chance coming up to secure a spot in the open beta. Funcom will soon be making an announcement on how members of the Age of Conan community will be able to get one of these soon to be coveted spots. If you are interested, now is a good time to sign up to the AoC forums. 

Turbine Announces Lord of the Rings Online Preorders

Turbine and Midway have announced the pre-order program for Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar today. By pre-ordering, the customer is made a part of the Founders Program.

When a player joins the Founders Program he receivies the following benefits:

• Two different membership options, a standard monthly fee of $9.99, or a lifetime membership for $199.
• Guaranteed access to the open beta planned for 30th of March, 2007.
• Rollover of characters created during the beta to the live servers when the game is released.
• Two special in-game items that are only available to pre-order customers. These are the Enchanted Cloak of Regeneration, and the Ring of Agility.

Turbine have come up with a nice set of incentives here. Most of the time pre-order programs don’t actually offer much above what a player gets when they simply buy the game off the shelf. Unique items are nice, but usually superseded once the player gains a few levels. What Turbine is offering here is a guarantee to play the beta, and not to lose those efforts when the game goes live. There will be a huge number of pre-orders simply for this feature alone.

The low monthly fee and lifetime membership is nice too. I suspect though most players will save more by taking the $9.99 monthly fee. Most MMO players don’t stay in a game for more than a year before cancelling their account, and $199 is almost twenty months of play at $9.99 per month. If you know you are going to stick with the game for at least twenty-one months go for the $199, otherwise stick with the low monthly fee.

Is Blizzard Working on a New MMO

IGN is reporting on an article in Empire Magazine where Blizzard’s Vice President of Development, Itzik Ben Bassat says:

When we announce our next MMORPG it’s not going to be another WoW – we’re not a company that tends to tread the same ground. It’ll be something innovative and new that really brings entertainment to another level.

Coupled with some other comments made recently regarding Starcraft and Diablo, the speculation is that one of these games may be the subject of this MMO. I’m not so sure about this. While I think both Diablo and Starcraft could work as a MMORPG, I’m not sure these would fit in with the innovative and new label that Mr Ben Bassat is talking about.

Diablo, undoubtedly, would work very well as a MMO. Most of the elements already exist, and the game has a strong online component. Quests, items, and the world would have to be beefed up considerably, but that wouldn’t be a problem for such a development. The lore of the world is very well developed, much as Warcraft’s lore was well developed prior to World of Warcraft.

The problem is that the gameplay in Diablo has a lot of similarities with the gameplay in World of Warcraft. A Diablo MMO, if it was to retain its Diabloness would be very similar to WoW. This would disqualify it as being new and innovative.

Starcraft could be developed much the same way as Warcraft was developed into WoW. (World of Starcraft anyone?) However, I’m not sure it would be. From what I’ve read, I think Starcraft 2 is on the way and it will be a traditional RTS style game. The original Starcraft is still pretty popular, and I think that some of the fan base would be disappointed if it wasn’t a RTS.

Of course that doesn’t mean that it can’t or won’t be made into a MMORPG. With Starcraft being set in a SciFi world, Blizzard could easily come up with gameplay that is different to WoW and Diablo. That would gel with the new and innovative tag mentioned in the quote. However, I wonder if the Starcraft universe is rich enough for a MMO. I’m not sure Starcraft would make a good MMORPG.

What I expect to see happen is that Blizzard will come up with a completely new IP for their next MMO. Warcraft was a great IP for them to use to get into the MMORPG genre since it was so well known. With the funds that will be available to Blizzard from the WoW income, it may be that they will branch out into something completely different. I hope so anyway.

Having said all that, I do wonder if we are jumping the gun a bit here. All of the language used has been somewhat fluffy, when we announce our next mmorpg, indicates they are thinking about another MMO but gives no idea if they are even in the planning stages. The comments about Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 are even more ambiguous.

Perhaps we are reading our own hopes and desires into these comments. I know that I’d love to see Starcraft 2 released, I spent many hours playing the original, and have always wondered why the sequel hasn’t been made. But, until an official announcement has been made, all we have to go on is rumour and speculation.

Burning Crusade First Impressions

I picked up my copy of the Burning Crusade today at lunch and installed it this evening when I got home from work (told you I wouldn’t be able to resist.) I did end up getting the Collectors Edition too, and I’m glad I did. Normally with Collectors Editions, I could take them or leave them. There’s usually a few bits and pieces, that while interesting, don’t really have a lot of substance. The Burning Crusade CE on the other hand has some really nice stuff. It’s definitely worth the extra forty Aussie dollars. The CE cost me AUD99.00.

There’s a couple of packs of trading cards, a DVD install disk as well as the CDROM versions, a DVD on the making of TBC, and a couple of guest pass keys. What I really liked though, was the book of artwork from the expansion. It’s a nicely bound, hardcover book with lots of pictures of the races, locations, weapons, armor, and other aspects of TBC. I’ve always been fond of art, so this book really makes the CE worthwhile for me.

The install was excellent. So easy. After starting the installer, and entering the CD key while it was running, the expansion registered, and I was ready to go within 20 minutes. I’ve got to commend Blizzard on this. It’s probably the smoothest expansion install I’ve had for a MMO.

After installing it was time to log in. Once again nice and smooth. I take back what I said yesterday about logging in on patch days. I didn’t have any issues, and I didn’t have to wait in any queues. A few people were complaining of lag, but I didn’t experience anything too serious there.

My first step was to create a Draenei mage on the Windrunner server. This was where my old Alliance guild was based, so I figure if I give him much time, I’ll be doing it with old friends. It didn’t take long though before I felt the pull of the Dark Portal. I logged out Draenei Stropp on WR, and logged in Orc Stropp on Khaz’goroth. I’d logged out previously in STV, so it was a short flight and ride to the portal.

After stepping through the portal, I took a bit of time just to look around. Blizzard have certainly done a good job with the environment here. I love the skyscape and the impression of bottomlessness that I got when peering over the edge of the peninsula. After a bit of looking around I proceeded to do the quest progression, met up with a fellow guildie and started working on one of the kill quests.

So far, so good. I haven’t had a problem with any of the mobs I’ve encountered. I took down a couple of 62s and hardly broke a sweat. Maybe what some of the whingers on the forums are saying is true, and hunters are overpowered. Shhh. Don’t say anything.

One thing is for certain, my gear is not going to be worth much soon. I’ve seen a few items that will obsolete my gear fairly quickly. There was even a green (or perhaps blue) bow that was pretty close my Mandokir’s Sting. Sorta make me glad I didn’t raid like an idiot just to get gear.

So the upshot is, after two hours of play, that I think the Burning Crusade expansion is very well done. I’ll need to see more of the content before I finally make up my mind, but from what I’ve heard I don’t think that will change much.

The Burning Crusade has certainly been worth the wait, although I do hope the next expansion doesn’t take two years. I don’t think that will be the case though, since Blizzard has indicated the next one will be out in a year. I do think that Blizzard should take a leaf from SOEs Everquest 2 and release a little more frequently, perhaps even releasing an Adventure pack or two rather than a full expansion. But for now, I’m happy with the Outlands.

What are your impressions so far?

TBC Day is Upon Us

It’s been a long wait, but finally, in a very few hours, The Burning Crusade expansion will be upon us.

My local EB Games store is among those doing a midnight opening to allow the hordes of content starved players to buy a copy of the expansion. These players will then rush home and get started through The Dark Portal. Tomorrow promises to be a day of low productivity across the nation as workers take a sickie. Those that come to work will have rings around their eyes as dark as the Dark Portal itself. I wonder if the Bureau of Statistics will have those figures at a later date.

But not I. I’ll be getting my copy tomorrow. I’ve spoken to the game store, they called me on the weekend to let me know about the midnight opening, and they have assured me that I have a copy of The Burning Crusade CE waiting for, come what may.

There’s an old adage that it’s not wise to play on patch day. I’m not intending to install the expansion until next week. I’d prefer to spend my game time playing a game, not waiting for server queues, or facing bugs. But, I expect my resolve will crumble once I have that box in my hot little hands.

At least the roads and highways will be a bit emptier tomorrow morning.

TBC Release Realms

Drysc posted the following information on the official forums regarding the new realms that will be released with The Burning Crusade expansion.

We’ll be launching the following six realms with the release of The Burning Crusade expansion on January 16, at 12:01 AM EST.


Nagrand – PvE, Oceanic – Bloodlust battlegroup


Velen – PvE, Pacific


Coilfang – PvP, Pacific


Terokkar – PvE, Central


Exodar – PvE, Eastern


Auchindoun – PvP, Eastern


The majority of these realms will be placed in a new battlegroup, the name of which has yet to be announced. These are new non-transfer realms and as such the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj will be closed and they will not be open to character transfers for six months.

As I posted the other day, there is a new Oceanic realm that will be added at this time which is good news for us overcrowded antipodeans.

The other good news is that these realms will not be open to transfers for six months. While this doesn’t take as much pressure off the existing servers, players who don’t mind starting anew will find a nice clean economy waiting for them. Prices will be low and everything will be shiny. Blood elves and Draenei will abound.

Draeni, Red Headed Step Children of WoW?

Oops! Since writing this post, I’ve been told that I mispelled Draeni in my search. It should have been spelt Draenei and gets 710,000 Google hits, for a much more respectable ratio of 1.79:1. Thanks to Eliah Hecht of WoW Insider for putting me straight. I’ll leave the original post below to preserve the record.

I mentioned in I’m Too Ugly for this Blood Elf that I’ve been getting a surge in traffic from a Wikipedia article. I’ve also seen a lot of search strings in my blog and awstats statistics for Blood Elves, Blood Elf, and other variations on the spelling. But I noticed my stats didn’t seem to show any search strings for the Draeni.

So I typed ‘Draeni’ into Google and did a search. The search result turned up 863 English pages. Conversely, a search on ‘Blood Elf’ returned 1,270,000 English pages. This works out to 1471 pages on Blood Elves, for each page on the Draeni. That’s a pretty low ratio, suprisingly low in fact. With the popularity and controversy that has surrounded the Blood Elves, I would expect that a search would get more pages, but not nearly 1500 times more.

If noone is writing about the Draeni, it makes me wonder if the Draeni will be a popular class in World of Warcraft.

I’m too Ugly for this Blood Elf

A few months ago I reported that Blizzard had updated the models for the male Blood Elves in a post called Beefed Up Blood Elves. It’s always been one of the more viewed articles that I have written, but over the last few days I’ve noticed quite a jump in people viewing and commenting on that post.

So I checked my stats. Aside from a lot of Google searches, I’ve had a ton of incoming visitors from Wikipedia. Looks like Beefed Up Blood Elves has been referenced in the Wikipedia entry about Blood Elves. I wasn’t expecting that. I certainly don’t consider myself an authority on Blood Elf attributes or their lore. But still, what a blast! Over the last week I’ve had several hundred hits originating from Wikipedia.

Not everyone agrees with my opinion though. In Beefed Up Blood Elves, I put forward that I thought it was a good thing that Blizzard was making them more intimidating, and that I thought it would be good to make them more Hordish. My second post on the matter, Uglify the Blood Elves, Blizzard was a bit more tongue in cheek and built on the theme of making the Belfs more into the Horde mold.

It seems that people are fairly passionate about Blood Elves. I’ve been told my opinion is wrong. I’ve been informed of the intricacies of Blood Elf lore. I’ve even been told to hang myself with my keyboard. lol.

Well, I won’t hang myself because my opinion doesn’t match up with yours. Sorry! But, I’ll give you the reason why I have this opinion.

I simply just don’t care for stylized representations of beauty. Pretty much all the games I play, I pick character styles that don’t look beautiful. In Eve my character looks like he went 250 rounds each with Rocky, Mr T, and a brick wall. My EQ2 character is a Barbarian. Only in Guild Wars do I have a pretty character… simply because it’s not possible to create a character that doesn’t look impossibly gorgeous. My main WoW Alliance character is a burly beer-swilling bar-fighting Dwarf called Klarm.

Even on TV, I have a fondness for the ugly characters. My favorite Star Trek characters are the Klingons. What a great species. Much better than the culturally stagnant Federation. Klingons really know how to have fun. It annoys me that most of the aliens encountered in SciFi look just like humans, but with a tiny difference like wrinkled noses or pointy ears.

That’s the reason I’d like to see the Blood Elves take on a more menacing look. I don’t think World of Warcraft needs another pretty race, on either side. There are three already, and three is enough.

Now I’d like to hear what you think. Don’t just tell me I am wrong, or to hang myself. That’s just lame. Don’t just echo the lore, or even what someone else has said on the subject. Tell me your reasons why you think Blood Elves should be one way or another.

I want to hear what you think.

Related Posts

Beefed Up Blood Elves

Uglify the Blood Elves, Blizzard