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Blizzard,

the Lan question has been covered. I think a short summary is that your entire gaming customer group at large is incredibly angry at the online only requirement (and how that screws up lan gaming), so I will not get into that or the ensuing boycott that I (and every lan party I know and/or have been a part of) are boycotting your products now.

My question is: in what ways has the activision merger done anything good for the company? All I have seen so far is basically the equivalent of extremely bad policy moves and basically squeezing your gamers for money, more than you used to.

Now that almost every game requires online activation, online play, etc, why are you complicit in essentially creating your own form of DRM for your products in that they won't even work without Blizzard servers?

There was a bug in World of Warcraft after the Lich King release where you could end up flying across (and through) the entire would if you dueled a death knight who was on a particular boat. Here's a video of it.

Here's the article: http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/08/pve-arenas/

This prompted me to post some of the thoughts friends and I have been batting around about blending of PvE and PvP: http://www.3d6.net/aarons_essays/2008/10/bringing-pvp-and-pve-together.html

Something like special hardware tokens are much better, but there's no infrastructure for their distribution.

I seem to recall a rather high profile company introduce a hardware token to assist with account security, it was greeted with much enthusiasm by it's customers. Yet before long, it too, failed .

Something like special hardware tokens are much better, but there's no infrastructure for their distribution.

I seem to recall a rather high profile company introduce a hardware token to assist with account security, it was greeted with much enthusiasm by it's customers. Yet before long, it too, failed .

Something like special hardware tokens are much better, but there's no infrastructure for their distribution.

I seem to recall a rather high profile company introduce a hardware token to assist with account security, it was greeted with much enthusiasm by it's customers. Yet before long, it too, failed .

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/06/26/blizzard-authenticator-to-be-introduced-at-the-worldwide-invitat/

I submitted this last week, but it was rejected. I'm guessing because WoW Insider is not considered a reliable source.

In part because selling the enchants is so hard... I could have sworn Blizzard said they were going to implement some kind of 'enchanting stone' that you could create then sell on the AH. That would have made things so much easier.

I saw something about this recently in a Q&A about the Lich King expansion.

(five minutes of googling...)

Some rumours

(five minutes more...)

Ah! Found it!
Blizzcon forum

Q: Why do Enchanters have to stand around Org and spam chat channels instead of put items in AH? (applause)
A: Was originally designed for player interaction. Didn't work out quite as well. We still like the player interaction and may be keeping it on the higher enchants, but we are talking about going to an item based system. (applause)

That's as strong an indication as we're likely to get, but it's certainly not a definite. Still, we can hope.

In part because selling the enchants is so hard... I could have sworn Blizzard said they were going to implement some kind of 'enchanting stone' that you could create then sell on the AH. That would have made things so much easier.

I saw something about this recently in a Q&A about the Lich King expansion.

(five minutes of googling...)

Some rumours

(five minutes more...)

Ah! Found it!
Blizzcon forum

Q: Why do Enchanters have to stand around Org and spam chat channels instead of put items in AH? (applause)
A: Was originally designed for player interaction. Didn't work out quite as well. We still like the player interaction and may be keeping it on the higher enchants, but we are talking about going to an item based system. (applause)

That's as strong an indication as we're likely to get, but it's certainly not a definite. Still, we can hope.

Some speculation over at wowinsider.com that Blizzard's Third Project is internally called "Hydra".

Say what you will about the EVE folks, at least they don't blatantly cheat in front of everyone's eyes, like those bastards at Blizzard did.

Now you won't need to travel halfway across the country to pay some girl WOW gold to have sex with them. Yes, I hope to god that story's a hoax but it seems all too plausible. I guess the real question is, which is more mentally scarring - a WOW conference or a furry conference?

It just goes to show how superheroically drawn the characters are drawn when the "femme" version is more muscular than most men in the real world. I know I wish I had pecs and biceps like that... Couple more before/after pics here.

I REALLY wish wow had better options for customizing the build/appearance of the players. I get so tired of seeing the same old faces and same old bodies. But I guess there's just no money in it.

Checking places like Circuit City, Best Buy, EB Games, GoGamer, Amazon.com, etc... they are all selling the game for ~ $19.99