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Тема «Classic»
Тема «Thottbot»
Новости
Live
In-Game Casinos — Legal?
I wrote this blog a little while ago, so the topic may be a little played out. But
Malgayne
just got around to publishing it—so blame him!
Blizzard announced earlier this year that their policy on running an in-game casino had changed. For three years, the policy had been that an in-game casino was against their Terms of Use. For the full story, click
here
.
Originally, running casinos was banned altogether. Now, their stance on it is that "they do not represent a violation" of their Terms of Use, but you could not
spam
advertisements or scam players. In a more recent post, found
here
, Blizzard decided to ban advertisements altogether due to two reasons: one, because the advertisements were going out of hand; and two, because players expressed their disapproval over this.
Live
StarCraft Fans Rejoice!
Wowhead user
SirPunky
was kind enough to bring this to our attention, big thanks to him. The
Starcraft II Beta
test is scheduled for sometime within the next few months, so if you'd like to slide your Marine Boot in that door - and then up some Zergling behind - listen closely.
Live
BlizzCon '09 Ticket Sales Announced!
Blizzard have just announced that the tickets for this years BlizzCon Gaming Convention will be going on sale May 16th, and again May 30th!
The tickets will cost $125 USD, and will be sold in two batches as to give everyone a chance at nabbing their pass to this awesome (IRL*) event. This fourth BlizzCon will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, on August 21st and 22nd. Like last year, DIRECTV® will be offering the chance to watch the goings on of the convention with their Pay Per View service. Just in case you are unfortunate, and cannot attend BlizzCon in person.
Like me. /cry
Go here for more information!
Blizzard Press Release
*In real life. Cause we all have to go outside sometimes.
Live
Creative Writing Contest Update!
Hey all you creative writers—MasterOfDisguise here!
Remember the
Creative Writing Contest
Blizzard had back in April? Well, Nethaera posted an update regarding the contest. Basically, the entries are being reviewed by the judges now, and the winners will be announced on Friday, May 22. The announcement will likely be placed either on Blizzard's
World of Warcraft home page
and/or their
General Discussion Forum
. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled then!
Take a look at the full announcement after the break!
Live
Comic Quiz Contest!
Hey all you lore fanatics—MasterOfDisguise here!
This is kind of old news, but worth a post anyway! If you know World of Warcraft's lore inside and out, then you may have the chance to win a
World of Warcraft Action Figure
! Blizzard is hosting a
Comic Quiz Contest
. You can sign up and look at all of the rules
here
.
All the details to follow after the break!
Live
GDC 2009
A little while ago, as some of you may know, I was at
GDC
San Francisco (Game Developers Conference), and while there, I learned a lot about gamer culture.
Now, E3 is and always has been a press event—an event where game companies get to show off the new cool stuff that they're doing to the public and to each other. GDC, though, is an industry event—where it's mostly about meeting other people in the industry, awarding innovation in games, and the new middleware type stuff that's out there. Being someone who works in the game industry, and only a short drive away from San Francisco, I just had to be there.
Live
Girls Don't Game
I know I've been doing a lot of short, link-out posts lately but I had to take the time to mention this one—according to the latest article on WoWInsider, WoW is now the
most played "core" game
in the 25-54 year old female demographic.
Ladies and gentlemen, the world is changing—and it's about time.
For those of you who want the link directly to the Nielsen report, it can be found here:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/stateofvgamer_040609_fnl1.pdf
Live
Bizarre Server Problems?
Now THESE are some weird server problems.
WoW Insider
has posted a story about the strange server troubles Blizzard seems to have been having tonight.
Apparently there are a lot of server crashes—this is nothing new. What IS new are the instances of duplicate NPCs all over major cities, and the reports of the letters "F U" appearing outside the Violet Hold.
Could this be the work of a hacker? Has someone finally managed to crack Blizzard's security? Or is it just a strange confluence of weird server errors?
The WoW Insider story can be found
here
.
Live
WoWInterface Exclusive: The WoW Addon Store
Our sister site,
WoWInterface
, has got some breaking news on the latest major change to Blizzard's Addon system: The Blizzard Addon Store.
This is a gutsy decision on Blizzard's part—especially because adopting this business plan will make sites like WoWInterface, Curse, and UI.Worldofwar.net entirely obsolete—WoWI has already announced plans to shut down.
I encourage everyone to read the
announcement
, and to post their thoughts and opinions.
Live
New Look!
So you may have noticed a few changes around here!
Wowhead has updated with a sleek, exciting new
frontpage
design. We're very excited about this new phase in Wowhead's development, and we hope you are too! We think it really takes Wowhead to the next level.
Please be sure to give us your thoughts and opinions at:
feedback@cuckhead.com
Learn more about the changes after the break.
Live
ZAM Interviews MDY Lawyer on Addon Policy
So our friends over at the ZAM.com news site have posted a very interesting interview—this time with a lady named Connie Mableson.
Connie is the lawyer who represented MDY (known to most of you as the company that created the infamous "Glider" program) in the legal action that took place between Blizzard and MDY. She also represented the very first business to try and make money off of the Internet, was the first lawyer to open a law office in a virtual world—in this case, Second Life. She's
also
an avid WoW player, and she has some very interesting theories about the motivating factors behind Blizzard's recent UI policy change.
Having read the article, I don't agree with the conclusions she's come to. But either way, it's interesting to see her opinion on a highly controversial topic.
Head on over to ZAM.com to
check it out!
Live
March Mayhem on the Escapist
So in light of all the discussion there's been about loyalty to Blizzard lately, I thought I'd make you guys aware of an opportunity to prove that loyalty. :)
The Escapist
is holding a March Madness, NCAA-style tournament showdown of game developers! The showdown had already begun before I got wind of it, but the
current
matchup is between
Blizzard
and
Relic Entertainment
, makers of the Dawn of War series. As of the time of this writing, Relic was ahead by 8 votes!
So go poke around, show your support! The tournament index page is
here
, and the specific showdown page is
here
. :)
Live
Battle.net Accounts!
So Blizzard appears to be moving in a more unified direction! Yesterday they announced the expansion of their Battle.net service. It looks like they're setting things up so that going forward you can log into WoW, Diablo III, Starcraft II, and all their upcoming betas with a single set of login information.
This is all well and good, of course, but what I'm
really
excited about is the ability to keep track of your CD Keys for
earlier
games, which will let you download and play games like Diablo II and Warcraft III on any computer. Anyone who's been a regular reader of this blog will know that this is an exciting prospect for me personally. Just be careful with your account information!
You can set up your Battle.net account here:
http://us.battle.net/account/creation/landing.xml
More info can be found on the Battle.net FAQ here:
http://us.battle.net/faq/index.html
The full announcement is after the break!
Live
UI Changes Rundown Now Available
Blizzard has released some new info on all the different upcoming UI changes! Here's the official announcement:
New User Interface Updates
There are many new additions and changes coming in the near future for World of Warcraft. Alongside the hotly anticipated raid dungeon
Ulduar
, several new user interface features will be debuting, and we’ve put together a
preview of them
to let you know what to expect when the patch arrives.
Check after the break for a rundown of what you can expect to see.
Live
Mommy, Where Does QQ Come From?
A little while ago I had a conversation with a user that got me thinking.
He was talking for a bit about how he didn't want Wowhead to turn into WowSpace, and that while he granted that the forums were a great addition to Wowhead, he also expressed frustration about troll posters, feeling that they caused the Wowhead forums to bring the overall quality of Wowhead down, rather than up.
Now, I don't mean to suggest that this user was QQing. He was expressing his honest opinion and I respect him for it. But it started to make me think about the nature of people, and why we complain about the things we do.
Live
Comic Honorable Mention - Avedral
One of our users,
Avedral
just won a honorable mention at Blizzard's fan comic contest. Here is the official announcement:
Here is the next honorable mention from
this month's
comic contest submissions. Remember, the contest will go on all year long, so don't miss your chance to win a copy of the World of Warcraft Battle Chest signed by both Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen and Art Director Chris Robinson, as well as a World of Warcraft 60 day pre-paid time card.
Keep those comics coming! Check out today's honorable mention from
Avedral
.
Here's a link to the
comic itself
, and a direct link to the
image by itself
(or just use the thumbnail to the right).
Congratulations to
Avedral
- we wish you sky-rocking success and many more notable entries, preferably - winning ones! :)
We are proud to have you
Live
Holy Cow 30 Minute Hearthstone Cooldowns
This is a short post but I had to bring this up.
According to the legendary Eyonix, 3.1.0 will be removing the ability to "ghetto hearth" using instance groups. But it will
also
be changing the cooldown on hearthstones to 30 minutes.
The World (of Warcraft) changes again.
I will tell you what, guys. I'll bring this up with the designers. Though the hearthstone is reasonable, since many of you have become used to "ghetto hearth" style travel, it may be deemed an appropriate change.
I can make no promises.
Update: Alright, all -- we're going to make the cooldown on hearthstones 30 minutes when 3.1.0 releases. Enjoy your sweet victory.
Thanks to those who provided feedback constructively.
Source
Live
The Secret Dungeon!
So by now I can imagine just about everyone has seen the preview for the new Ulduar raid dungeon.
If you haven't, you can find it here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/ulduar.xml
Once again Blizzard provides us with a walking tour of some of their most epic locations. It's beautiful work, and I'm really excited to see it in action—one of the things that I especially like about World of Warcraft is the architecture, and the Titan architecture is my favorite of all.
What really blows my mind about all this, though, is how good Blizzard is at keeping secrets.
Live
Dual Spec Changes
More news from the blues! This time, blue poster Zarhym has announced (inadvertently?) some changes to the dual-spec system.
Characters level 40 and up may now use the dual-spec system.
The cost to activate the ability is .
The ability no longer requires a Lexicon of Power.
Switching specs has a 5-second cast time. It may not be used in combat, or in battlegrounds or arenas.
There is no cooldown on switching specs.
Good news for casual players, or those looking to do instances while leveling up! The original text of the posts, and links to the sources, are after the break.
Live
3.1 Patch Notes!
3.1 is
now live
on the PTRs!
We have a very special
Patch Notes
page all prettied up with links, colors and tooltips, just for you! Check it out here:
http://www.cuckhead.com/?patchnotes=3.1.0-ptr
This one has got some ESPECIALLY interesting changes. Not only do we have a brand new Gear Planner tool, we see the long-awaited implementation of the Dual Spec feature. There are also apparently some tweaks to the quest tracking system I'm interested to see—and mounts (or at least non-flying mounts) no longer vanish when they get wet!
Combine all of this with the class specific changes (Trap Launchers, anyone?) and I think we've got a hell of a patch coming up. Comments, questions, and thoughts are welcome!
PS: We are working round the clock to get all the new items and data up on the site for your perusal. Your new talent calculators should be ready shortly!
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