world of warcraft
Via aphoenix
Information just wants to be free... For those out there otherwise unaware this means that all five expansion packs have been consolidated into the basic game, which is $20 before starting up with the monthly subscription fee.
Can't help but hear the tortured cries of those souls that perished in the closing of Nostalrius in the background though...
Via Comicbook.com
Just yesterday we reveled in the 11th anniversary of the god amongst men, Leeroy Jenkins.
And now we've this sequence of glorious WoW gold. Only thing is, and I can't imagine I'm the only one thinking this, but can we get Leeroy in on this sh*t? Just a brief cameo role? I mean, come onn.
Via vaxzone
Oh, just a btw, but this cosplay is actually executed to perfection by Lady Angelus...so perhaps, Queen of Warcraft Cosplay?
Via battle.net
Assistant game director Ion Hazzikostas responded to a forum thread about expensive vendor items, and actively tried to dismantle the widespread belief that there exists a feeling of consensus in a world as massive and diversified as WoW's. He wrote:
"If I’d instead posted that we were going to reconsider and massively reduce the prices of the cosmetic items on this vendor, there would be other people feeling like their feedback was ignored.
It’s exceptionally rare that everyone wants the same thing,” he added. “And even then, there is a large silent majority that does not post on forums. If there were actual unanimity regarding a certain issue, we would change our design: For example, early on in Warlords, we changed Group Finder loot from Personal back to Need/Greed until we could iterate on Personal loot further, and the community overwhelmingly told us that was a dumb idea. The change was reverted within 2 days.”
He wrapped up his response by honing in on the value of tailoring different kinds of content to different groups, as opposed to just issuing one 'low common denominator' that lacks any real excitement, for anyone.
“If an awesome mount comes exclusively from PvP, the majority of players who don’t participate in PvP yet desire the mount would prefer that it were otherwise,” Hazzikostas explained. “If our goal were to please a majority, we would likely have to make a version of that mount also available through raiding, and one also available through outdoor questing and reputation, at the very least. But doing that would dilute the reward itself. Ultimately, the approach we take is usually to tailor different content and rewards that can feel special to different groups, rather than trying to come up with a lowest common denominator that isn’t special to anyone.”
In case you've lived underneath a rock for most your life, Leeroy Jenkins is the name of a WoW character who famously screamed out his name before charging into battle in a blazing display of unabashed recklessness, only to end up getting his entire team killed in epically ignorant fashion.
Blizzard stepped up and recognized Leeroy's fabled shamelessness several times by rewarding him an official trading card, mini figurine, and even named an achievement after him. See below.
Who might be the man behind this storied moment in WoW gaming history? Meet Ben Schulz, a Denver-based gamer who initially filmed the video with some buddies from college, never thinking it'd go anywhere. Oh, if only you'd known Schulz, if only. After the video had been online for a couple years, Schulz was formally invited to give the keynote speech at ROFLCon (been invited to speak at for three years now). Check out Schulz speaking at Blizzcon below:
Jenkins continues to find his way into various pop culture moments, even truck advertisements. Check out four such instances below. You've probably, definitely seen at least one of 'em before.
And of course, perhaps the pinnacle of Leeroy's widespread fame thus far--The Daily Show mention...Oh Leeroy, we love ya man.
Via micromatXBL
Let's get a thread rolling on the best videogaming freakouts as result of the mothers of this world barring their kids from continuing to play various video games, that the internet has to offer. Shoot:
They posted the following series of announcements to their Facebook page on what we can expect as potential developments for Nostalrius server over upcoming days:
Dear community,
The last few weeks have been full of exciting events that we did not anticipate. We saw the first official answer from J. Allen Brack on the topic of legacy servers, the petition reached 250.000 signatures, and we are currently scheduling a meeting at Blizzard campus!
We are very excited to be able to help Blizzard understand the part of their community asking for legacy servers and many other related topics, in the hope that they will eventually make it possible to legally play previous game expansions.
Since these events are major changes regarding the legacy server scene, completely changing our former strategy, we have several announcements today:
A. Ambassadors of Legacy servers
After the answer from Blizzard and the amazing support we received, we feel we are now not only the admins of a private server: We are also the ambassadors of a larger movement for the entire World of Warcraft community that wants to see game history restored. It is a major responsibility. Our top-priority and only focus now is to fulfill the needs of this community, by carrying your voice to Blizzard directly.
B. Nostalrius source code and database won’t be releasedWe acknowledge the help that the emulation community provided to us by creating MaNGOS and our initial objective was to release part of these sources to help improve the current emulators - without our special anti-cheat and some other critical features.
Our custom anticheat had unique functionalities that allowed us to detect and track any kind of hack / bot in a generic way. We believe the anticheat that we made was able to detect and was able to block all of the known threats, and releasing our code would allow the development of more powerful cheating tools that would be more difficult, if not impossible, to detect. We have spent countless hours to fight people making money from exploits, cheats and traffics: the last thing we want to see now is people getting more money from wow hacks because of us.
Some voices in the emulation scene wanted to legally force us to release the complete source code if we chose to only publish a part of it. As explained above, the anticheat is not something we would reveal in any case.
A second important point is that keeping the sources private could be useful at some point during the discussion with Blizzard. They proposed to discuss together and we want to have all the chances on our side, for the community we represent now.
Furthermore, if official legacy servers were to be released at some point in the future, the emulation would become, in essence, obsolete for our community.
C. A special gift for you
On a side note, the development team has prepared a gift for you. One of the hidden Nostalrius features was the ability to "replay" sequences of the game. This is something that was mainly used to create our videos, but never released to players. We accumulated a few replays of different events that occurred on our PvP and PvE servers, and we are willing to let you replay these magic moments. We are glad to inform you that Nostalrius team is releasing the first "replay" feature for World of Warcraft, and will be available to anyone: a powerful tool for future e-sport event maybe ?
The source code is available here (based on BunnyEmu, credit to their developers) :
Via eurogamer
World of Warcraft's Executive Producer J. Allen Brack released the following statement via Eurogamer, as a response to the Nostalrius server closure:
"Failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard's rights. While Blizzard had looked into the possibility of working with unofficial servers, there was not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions, added Brack. Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.
We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WOW.
Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.
In closing, Brack made reference to the 235,000 signatures for the petition to reinstate the server, saying: "They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks."
What do you make of all this?
In case you could go for a trip down memory lane, we've provided the original video that depicts the final few minutes leading up to the server shutdown:
You can also check out the compilation of screenshots depicting the original massive pilgrimage staged by players in response to the Nostalrius server shutdown, over here.
Via Kromgar
As a self proclaimed WOW fiend, this is hands down the most beautiful thing the internet had to offer today. Now, behold the epic saga:
RIP ya beautiful bastards.
Via geekfanhumor
In case you missed it, Blizzard ran a pretty swell April Fool's Day prank last week that in all fairness, left a lot of us wishing the Frostdoge Clan were a real thing. But alas, no such luck to be had. Who knows though. Maybe Blizzard will pull through in due time.
