Blizzards Lawsuit

I’ve been following this Blizzard versus MDY/Glider lawsuit recently, and I’ve come to a somewhat unsettling conclusion.

Law is strange.

There are a couple of big issues at stake in this lawsuit. One of them is Blizzards contention that Glider allows bots that ruin World of Warcraft on several levels (that’s my non-lawyerly interpretation.) These bots essentially make hurt a players experience causing them to quit and thus damage Blizzards profits. Something like 20 million dollars worth of profit I understand.

The other is that Glider violates Blizzards EULA and Terms of Service (TOS).

Okay.

I think the contention that Glider is damaging Blizzards revenue is a novel approach. There are laws around that allow companies to sue based on interference with their business. If Glider does that, then Blizzard may have a case.

But didn’t Blizzard just reach ten million subscribers? Didn’t Blizzard make over a billion dollars in revenue last year, with a 500 million dollar profit?

It certainly doesn’t look like Glider has done any damage to Blizzards revenues. In fact it almost looks like Blizzard is making similar claims to the music industry about piracy. We’re making record profits, yet these bad guys are making us lose money. A 20 million dollar loss out of a 500 million dollar profit doesn’t seem to be a sustainable argument for damage to me.

I wonder how Blizzard can prove that players are leaving because of Glider. Is there a question on the unsubscribe form to ask players if they are quitting because of Glider?

The violation of the terms of service and the EULA is also interesting.

In essence, a EULA is a sort of contract. It’s an agreement. It’s my understanding that both parties have to agree to a contract before it becomes enforceable. Did MDY agree to Blizzards EULA and TOS?

Well. It’s pretty certain they did agree. After all, MDY would have to test their software. That requires a running copy of World of Warcraft, which requires the user to agree to the EULA and TOS before logging in. How enforceable this is, is another question.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not condoning the use or creation of the Glider program. MDYs claim that it is just for letting players avoid the level grind is somewhat bogus. There are plenty of players who want to do that, sure. But Glider has a lot more use with the gold selling industry, and that’s where it is hurting the community.

The thing is though, that using bots for gold farming is really at the lower end of the evil scale. Yes, it’s annoying to run into a bot that’s clearing an area that you need to work, but it’s much worse to be hacked with a keylogger, or to get your account stolen and characters cleaned out.

I’m sure that Blizzards lawyers believe that they have a case against MDY. It looks like MDYs lawyers believe the same thing since they are counter-suing Blizzard. It may be early, but it doesn’t look like there is a settlement is sight.

Popularity: 15%

MMOvie

Some people have way too much time on their hands… and I am so grateful.

Massively is reporting on a new World of Warcraft machinima. It has been in production for quite a while now, and has just released the first installment.

It’s called MMOvie and follows the misadventures of a trio of Indiana Jones wannabes. It’s incredibly well done, with some pretty good editiing. The sound and music is top notch too. I was hooked and laughing from the opening credits. Cubby Broccoli eat your heart out. About the only complaint was a slight video stutter, but that might be due to overloading the server.

The first episode is a bit over ten minutes long. I’ve embedded it here, or you can follow a link to the MMOvie website. Enjoy.

Popularity: 16%

No Vista Required

There was a little bit of a rumor going around this week on the WoW forums that Wrath of the Lich King was not only going to provide a graphics upgrade for World of Warcraft players, but that the upgrade would require DirectX 10 and be Vista only. In other words, Wrath of the Lich King was going to require WoW players to upgrade to Vista.

Aside from being an obvious forum troll, the post generated much discussion on the mental health of the poster and the friend who provided the scoop.

Blizzard poster Nethaera came to the party at comment 235 and stated quite succinctly:

The Expansion is not going to require users to upgrade to Vista. We have some things in the works on the end of graphics, but it’s not anything that is going to require this specific upgrade.

Hopefully, that puts this rumor to rest.

It’s nice, but not unexpected, that there will be a graphics update when the expansion is released. The Burning Crusade client also did some graphical updating. The new client which will be version 3 is likely to do the same.

But Blizzard won’t be updating it so much that it will require an operating system upgrade. For one thing that would be subscription suicide. Vista is slower with games, Blizzard isn’t going to alienate their players. I think they’re a bit smarter than that.

Considering that World of Warcraft still works perfectly well on lower end hardware and Vista doesn’t, to upgrade will force players to also upgrade their hardware. Blizz would lose a substantial number of subscribers and kiss any hope of getting back to ten million.

So the moral of this story?

Don’t believe what you read on the WoW forums.

Popularity: 17%

Bank Bans Blizzard

The Register is running a story on the banning of credit card transactions to Blizzard.

The Halifax bank in the United Kingdom is putting a stop on credit card transactions that are used to pay for World of Warcraft subscriptions because of the massive use of stolen credit cards. Halifax has made it quite clear that they are not blaming Blizzard or its practices for the fraud.

All is not lost for Halifax WoW players though. All a player has to do is contact the bank to allow payments to Blizzard to go ahead.

It’s interesting the timing of this story. I remember reading an article about this the other day, though I’m not sure where. Iirc, it was an interview with John Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment. In the interview he made the comment that credit card fraud costs SOE a huge amount of money.

Every time a fraudulent transaction is made with a credit card, it costs the company on the receiving end of the transaction. Not only is the amount of the purchase refunded, the company is often hit with a fine. This happens to ordinary consumers too, if they bank a cheque that is fraudulent.

This wouldn’t matter that much to companies like Blizzard and SOE if the numbers of these transactions were small. But they’re not. It sounds like there are thousands of these transactions happening each month. It would have to be costing a packet.

So what’s the reason for all this fraud?

It can’t be ordinary players. As soon as the fraud was discovered, the account would be closed and probably deleted.

The problem is the gold sellers.

I’ve never been one to really worry about people buying gold. I know a lot of people consider it cheating, but I’ve never really thought it affects the non-gold-buying player base.

The problem isn’t so much the buyers. It’s the sellers.

Gold sellers are criminals. It’s as simple as that. Even if the individual gold selling company isn’t doing anything naughty, they’re still buying gold from people who are doing illegal and unethical activities. Some of these activities are:

• Using stolen credit cards to purchase and subscribe to the game.
• Using malware to steal passwords and access player accounts. The accounts are then stripped and the gear sold for gold.
• Using gold selling websites to install keyloggers. You buy the gold and they steal it right back from you, along with all your gear.
• Joining a guild and stealing the guild bank.
• Joining groups and ninjaing the drops.

Aside from that list of evil activities, how about the gold sellers themselves?

Well just look at the activities of the people behind IGE. That is if you are able to after their lawyers get through with you. A recent post by Scott Jennings at Broken Toys about the behind the scenes activities of IGE was taken down due to the bully boy tactics of IGEs legal team. In the article, now down unfortunately, there was quite a story about the corruption of the founders of IGE. It could have been a movie of the week.

With people like these, willing to employee the tactics listed above, is it any wonder that there is so much fraud?

And just like when you were a kid and someone in the group played up, you all got into trouble. Now every WoW player who banks with Halifax has to go to the trouble to allow payments to Blizzard.

All because of gold sellers.

Popularity: 16%

WoW Really Is Everywhere

I see World of Warcraft everywhere. Today at work, I was making a coffee and on the other side of the partition I heard a couple of guys talking about the battlegrounds. The office space I work in isn’t really partitioned. There’s lot of low walls that I can look over as I walk through the office. Every so often I see a coworker taking a break and there’s a web browser open with the WoW forums, or a talent calculator, or the armory.

And not all of these coworkers are programmers or engineers, no those you can understand right? They’re marketing, costing, business development types. Sure, they work for an engineering company, but they’re not necessarily engineers.

I hear a lot more sport talk at work than I hear World of Warcraft talk. I hear people talking about participating in windsurfing, beach, and weekend team sports. I hear a lot of talk about the Cricket during summer, and the Footy during winter.

Strangely, even though WoW is less of a conversation piece than sport, it’s the same people I hear talking about WoW, or browsing through a WoW related web page. Who knows. Maybe some of them even read this blog.

It really is amazing what a cultural phenomenon that World of Warcraft has become. It’s been in television shows, and TV advertisements. If you mention the name to almost anyone, they know what you are talking about.

Unfortunately to most people who aren’t players, or gamers, World of Warcraft is still somewhat socially unacceptable. "You play a Night Elf what?"

But it wasn’t all that long ago that comic books were social stigmas. Now some of the most successful movies of the past decade have been based on comic books. X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, the Fantastic Four to name a few. I imagine, though I don’t have the numbers, that after each of these movies was released the subscription numbers to the related graphic magazines jumped up.

Will we see the same with MMOs?

Maybe, but I think it will take a little while longer for mainstream acceptance. A lot of people still see games as being for kids, even though the statistics show the average gamer is now around 29 years old.

World of Warcraft has opened the door to the world of MMOs for a lot of people. Time will tell if those players go on to other games. But one thing is for sure, in a few years - maybe after WoW has reached 100 million subscribers - there will be a lot more of the population who won’t look down on the average gamer.

In the meantime I’ll keep looking over partitions and note those around me who take a little WoW on their breaks. And I’ll smile.

Perhaps we need a secret handshake.

Popularity: 12%

Peon Union vows Strike Action

Hordes of Peons were laid off today as their employer Peons4Hires closed down several large farming stations. Peons4Hire blamed lower than expected quarterly earnings coupled with the current economic conditions for the downsizing.

A Peons4Hire spokesorc made a brief statement at the gates of the Windrunner facility just prior to the layoffs, where he stated: “that since Azeroth was currently experiencing an economic recession due to poor credit management and the recent subprime crisis, it has become necessary for Peons4Hire to consider a corporate restructuring.

When asked if the recent court settlement with Blizzard had anything to with the layoffs, the spokesorc decapitated the offending reporter with his axe and said that many of the companys financial problems could have been resolved if employees hadn’t been using the TPS report covers to dispose of their sunshine trout.

The Allied Peons Union (APU) spokeorc, L.Z. McOrc refuted the companies allegations of employee behaviour, and laid the blame squarely on the lawsuit win by Blizzard that awarded them a permanent injunction against spamming players in World of Warcraft.

Mr McOrc made the following statement:

With the permanent injunction awarded to Blizzard, serious hardship has befallen many of our faithful, yet lazy, peons. Since Peons4Hire are no longer able to sell virtual assets, or provide powerlevelling services to their clients, there is no longer a need for our services.

Many lazy peons are feeling the pinch tonight. These valued employees will not be able to provide for their families without the security of employment. What’s worse is that Peons4Hire is holding back on our redundancy benefits.

To ensure our members will have enough cheese and dry bread to feed their families we feel justified taking this strike action.

Wether the strike action is successful or not, it appears that the days of gold sellers are numbered. Blizzard, by aiming not at EULA violations, but at the negative effect that gold sellers have on player enjoyment and by implication on Blizzards revenue, have scored a significant win that will affect peons everywhere.

This reporter spoke with a number of peons as they headed out the server gates today and one sentiment echoed among the majority of displaced peons.

“I can’t wait for Warhammer.”

Thanks: Massively

Popularity: 17%

Single Player MMOs

Yesterday, Tobold asked the question, So would you buy single-player WoW?

It’s an interesting question, especially for someone like myself who tends to focus on single player activities. That doesn’t mean that I don’t group up, or dislike grouping. Some of the most fun I’ve had in the game has been in groups, instances, and raids. For that matter, some of the worst moments I’ve had in MMOs have been in groups, instances, and raids.

Still, I enjoy grouping up when I am in the mood for it.

But a single player World of Warcraft?

I’m not entirely sure it would be fun.

For one thing, the entire design of the game, from quests to grinding is designed to take place in a huge populated, alive world. That’s one of the things that makes a MMO different from a single player game.

The first game I bought for my XBox 360 was Oblivion. I’d played some Morrowind previously, so I knew what to expect, and I was not disappointed. Oblivion was a big huge beautifully thought out world. It was full of NPCs that walked around, shut their doors at night, and had chats with each other. They even reacted to your presence. It was a living world.

There were quests everywhere. Quests out the wahzoo, and I did heaps of them. When I got a bit bored, I practiced my alchemy, or I got to raising my skill with a bow by conjuring skeletons and plinking at them. It was a very full game. It was an excellent game.

But Oblivion felt empty.

There was no one begging for gold, following me around until I put them on ignore. No one spamming the general channel trying to sell something for twice it’s value, or asking for a port to wherever. No guild chat with the guildies giving each other a hard time. No Chuck Norris Barrens chat.

I remember thinking how much better this game would have been as a MMORPG, and after a while I got bored and stopped playing. I did have my usual altitis and created a number of different archetypes, but the game just felt empty.

Perhaps I’ve just spent too much time in massive online games. I didn’t have this problem before I logged in to Asheron’s Call for the first time. I think that I’m used to the human activity around me when I’m selling of trash loot, or in the Auction House. It’s just cool to be flying over the landscape and see another player hurrying towards a destination below me.

I now wonder if perhaps MMOs have ruined me for single player games. I did truly enjoy Mass Effect, so maybe that’s not entirely correct. A superb single player RPG might capture my attention and keep it. But I think it would have to be superb, I’ve tried to play a couple of single player RPGs over the last year or two and just haven’t got into them.

As for Tobolds question. Would I buy World of Warcraft as a single player game? Nope. I wouldn’t buy it. I think it would just be a big empty World of Warcraft without the human factor.

What do you think?

Popularity: 8%

WoW! Ten Million

Okay. So it’s not exactly a breaking news item, but the figures are in. World of Warcraft has broken the ten million subscriber count. That’s nearly half the population of Australia.

This number only includes current paying subscribers. It hasn’t been padded out with players who left the game months ago, or players in the free trials, or unused prepay cards

The paid subscribers can be broken down as follows.

• North America - 2.5 million.
• Europe - 2 million.
• Asia - 5.5 million.

It goes to show that World of Warcraft is, simply put, a great game.

I know that I’ve been somewhat critical of WoW in the past and, since I’m downright opinionated and sometimes curmudgeonly, I’ll be critical in the future. Even now I think that there are things that Blizzard could be doing better with this game.

But, as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Blizzard sat down, mixed up a batch of MMO pudding tastiness, baked it up, stuck their thumb in it and pulled out a huge plumb of gaming success. The fact that there are ten million subscribers means that World of Warcraft is what they want.

Nothing all the nay-sayers say can change that.

It also means that many of the predictions of the demise of Azeroth are wrong.

This doesn’t mean that WoW will be king of the hill forever. Things change, and often when it’s least expected. World of Warcraft, despite its development budget, in some ways came out of nowhere.

Everquest at the time was the king with something like 400,000 subscribers. At that time I remember reading statements in the gaming press saying that 400,000 was likely the limit. MMO gaming was too niche they said. I even recall the goals for Star Wars Galaxies being set somewhere around the 450,000 mark.

In the same way it’s premature to say that no-one will ever beat World of Warcraft. That time simply hasn’t yet arrived. I believe that one day there will be a WoW beater, and it will arrive on the trail made by Blizzard.

Think about it. The whole MMO Gaming phenomenon is extremely young, not much older than ten years. MUDs have been around a lot longer of course, but games like Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron’s Call defined the genre we now enjoy. I’m not sure when M59 was released, but it was before UO which hit shelves in 1998.

The MMO genre has barely started and we are seeing huge audiences. We have barely scratched the surface of what can be done, or what can work in this type of gaming. What it will be like ten, twenty, or fifty years from now is anybodies guess.

Isn’t it exciting?

In the meantime, World of Warcraft is going from strength to strength. Now the real question becomes, will they reach fifteen million subscribers?

Popularity: 15%

Sunday I Have Pallies On My Mind

After spending yesterday experimenting with the different character types of Mythos, I decided to play my Blood Elf Paladin, Selaeya for a little while today. BTW, here’s a link to her Warcrafter Profile.

I didn’t spend a huge amount of time, but dinged two levels to end up at level 11. Unfortunately a lag spike ended my session with a disconnection and I decided that I might as well call it a day.

Level 10 means that I am now looking at my talents. My previous pally was pretty much specced for Retribution. I can see no reason why I shouldn’t go that way once again. For the first 40 or 50 levels the Retribution build makes for easier leveling. In fact, with the level cap at 70 and possibly at 80 by the time Selaeya gets close to 60, it may be appropriate to stay Retribution specced.

I’m going to start with the first ten points in Divine Strength and Spiritual Focus, and from there I will start to spec out the Retribution tree. Divine Strength will increase my strength by 10 percent and increase my overall DPS.  Spiritual Focus when maxxed will give me a 70 percent chance to avoid being interrupted when casting the Holy and Flash of Light spells. Considering how close some fights get, not being interrupted can mean the difference between life and a repair bill.

Once I get close to the level cap, I’ll re-examine the build to suit what I plan to be doing.

Of course, all this may be moot. The last time Blizzard released an expansion, just prior to the release, they reworked all the talents for all the classes.

Will they do this again?

Just guessing, but I’d reckon not this time. I expect that they took into account the next couple of levels when they did that reworking.

I spent most of the game time today around the Wretched and the Murlocs. I took on two bosses, Mrryymm… the Murloc boss, and the Wretched boss at the top of the tower. Both were pretty much pushovers and I took back the trophies, a head and a ring, to the quest givers.

I also decided on Selaeya’s professions. I picked Jewel Crafting as the first primary profession, and Mining as the gathering profession to support Jewel Crafting. The mining is already over 50, and the Jewel Crafting is getting close to 50.

I hummed and ha’ed about taking a manufacturing profession since I believe that they tend to be a waste of time and effort. Since the rewards from instances and raids are better (at the same level) it’s more efficient to just group up and fight for the gear you need.

I’m prepared to give Jewel Crafting the benefit of the doubt at this stage. It has the potential to be really useful. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Popularity: 8%

Rumor and Innuendo - WoW Consolidated?

QJ.net is reporting on some buzz from the recent Consumer Electronics Show, that Blizzard may be working on a port of World of Warcraft to the world of consoles.

The idea resulted from the preview of a product called Prototype being developed by Sierra Entertainment.

Reading the article on QJ.net, it’s pretty clear that this is exactly what it appears to be… a rumor. Started in the time honored way that most rumors get started, by taking what someone in authority is saying out of context. In this case, the director for product globalization for Radical Entertainment, Chris Ansell was merely talking about how his company was exploring ideas and taking some of those ideas from WoW.

By all accounts, this years Consumer Electronics Show wasn’t anything to write home about. This was Bill Gates last year delivering the keynote speech on behalf of Microsoft. A lot of folks were disappointed that no major announcements were made.

Personally I doubt we will see World of Warcraft appearing on the XBox 360 or Playstation 3. or even the Wi for that matter.

Popularity: 11%