Patch 4.2 is looming towards us at a steady pace, bringing with it a whole truckload of shiny new stuff for us to get stuck into. The current best guess is that it’ll be hitting live servers on 21st June in US and 22nd June in Europe, putting it at less than two weeks away….
Karma As A Mechanic
Eurogamer recently did an interview of Will Wright, which I’d have missed completely if it wasn’t for a gem pointed out by Rock Paper Shotgun. It turns out that he’s working on a game with a strong karmic theme, using smartphones, tablets and Facebook as the platform. The concept of the game is based on…
PC Gaming Is Dead
Looking at the PC section of my local video games store is a depressing sight. The shelves that were once pride of place are now consigned to the back, flanked by preowned console games. The content of these shelves isn’t much better – it’s full of “safe” titles. Sequels, sure-fire hits and money spinners. When…
The Best Warcraft Smartphone
We’ve all been there, pouring over the various websites looking at glitzy marvels of glass, metal and plastic. But how do you decide which one is best? More importantly, how do you decide which is the best one for Warcraft? There’s two main smartphone camps to consider: Apple’s iPhone on the one hand or an…
What Is Hardcore?
Just what is a hardcore guild anyway? And how do you define a hardcore player? This has been a pretty big question for me and the guild I’m in. Ask around and you’ll probably get a different answer from every person. It’s one of those hard-to-define attribute that means different things to different people. In…
The Merits of Old Content
One of the discussions I hear popping up every so often is about old content. It’s a bit of a shame that every time a new tier of raiding comes out that the old tier gets abandoned, gathering dust and cobwebs. The Justice and Valour point system means that new raiders can skip old content…
Mages and Patch 4.2
A lot of us have been in a kind of holding pattern since 4.1 came out. Some of us have been focused on mopping up the current tier of raiding, like a roast dinner with lashings of gravy that you just need a bit of bread to polish off. Others have been filling a few…
Warcraft, Rift and Fun
I’m not sure if I announced this anywhere, but back in March I took a month long holiday from Warcraft to play Rift. I felt a little jaded from the game and needed to take a break, much like I occasionally take time off from my real-life job. I think its a healthy thing to…
Sony MMOs: An Uncertain Future
The last two weeks have been a difficult time for Sony. The PlayStation Network has suffered some two weeks of downtime, initially thought to be some form of emergency system maintenance. The followed the announcement that the Network had been hacked, exposing the personal details and passwords of some 77 million gamers and users of…
Designing My Own MMO
A while back I was challenged on Twitter to design my own MMO. I can’t remember exactly who threw down that gauntlet, but I have a feeling it was Razorbug. In the weeks that have passed I’ve been kicking the tires on this idea, thinking of how I could make a game unique enough to…