World of Warcraft, also commonly referred to as WOW, is a video game that is sweeping the world. In fact, it is such a popular game that there is a large chance that you have played the game before. If you are playing the game how are you doing? If your response is "not that well," or something similar do you know that there is an easy way for you possibly improve your performance? That way includes the use of wow gold.
In the World of Warcraft the wow gold is considered one of the greatest things. The currency can be used to buy items from other players or vendors. It can be used to both sell and purchase items. Different items, including weapons, are obtainable for a set number of wow gold pieces. Weapons and other items can be purchased starting at one wow gold coin and up. There are many individuals, maybe yourself included, who are constantly defeated due the lack of weapons which are only obtainable with the right amount of wow gold.
It is possible to obtain wow gold throughout the game, but the easiest way to obtain it is to buy it. Cheap wow gold can be purchased from a number of online websites. Right about now you may be wondering how and why you would go about buying cheap wow gold online. The process is a fairly easy one that can maximize the excitement of playing the World of Warcraft. In addition to adding to the excitement of the game, it is likely that your World of Warcraft game performance will dramatically increase.
The process of purchasing cheap wow gold online will all depend on where the cheap wow gold is being purchased from. Once payment for the cheap wow gold has been purchased, the majority of online websites will transfer the gold via the internet in an agreed upon meeting place. Other websites offer instant delivery into the mailbox for your game. Once the transfer has occurred you should receive the wow gold that you purchased for a cheap price.
If you are an active video gamer or just a player of World of Warcraft then purchasing wow gold may be the way to go. As previously mentioned, there are ways to play the game on your own, but why spend hours, weeks, even months trying when the process can be so much easier? With a small amount of money and the need to succeed you can be on your way to victory with the World of Warcraft. What are you waiting for, find cheap wow gold and purchase it today!
C.J. Preston is a writer for MMO Empire where you can buy cheap wow gold
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Benefits of Buying Wow Gold
Each and every day there are millions of people who are playing a video game. Many of the video games being played on a daily basis are difficult to play. The difficulty of a game is one of the reasons why a game is played, but at the same time it can also be frustrating. For that reason a large number of individuals seek assistance in trying to conquer a video game.
In the video game War of Worldcraft players are required to defeat enemies and overcome multiple challenges. To do this weapons are needed. Without the proper weapons an experienced gamer could fall to defeat. That is why many War of Worldcraft players end up buying wow gold.
Buying wow gold has an unlimited number of benefits, especially to those who love to play video games. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all is that it can help player to excel at the game. When the gold is used to purchase weapons those weapons can be used to move farther along into the game. This is a great feeling for many video game players. There are many who spend a large amount of time trying to get past a certain point and buying wow gold can eliminate that problem.
Another benefit to buying wow gold involves the buying process. Buying wow gold online is an easy process that can be completed in a few minutes. Most websites offer instant or quick delivery of wow gold after it is purchased. Simply by finding an individual or online website that offers instant delivery a person can be playing World of Warcraft with extra wow gold right away.
The other benefit of buying wow gold is that it is cheap to purchase. The cost of the wow gold will all depend on where it is being purchased from. Even though different sellers may charge different prices the price is generally low and is usually always reasonable. The small price is literally priceless for a gamer who wants to overcome a War of Worldcraft challenge.
The majority of players end up buying wow gold for one reason. That reason is to excel at the game. Even though there is a common reason for buying wow gold there are a number of different benefits to purchasing it. Each individual is likely to benefit from buying the gold in different ways.
If you are interested in buying wow gold you are encouraged to get started today. Most websites only require a credit card or PayPal account, an email address, and answers to a few simple questions to purchase wow gold. Why wait any longer when you can start reaping the benefits right now?
C.J. Preston is a writer for MMO Empire where you can find information on buying wow gold
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In the video game War of Worldcraft players are required to defeat enemies and overcome multiple challenges. To do this weapons are needed. Without the proper weapons an experienced gamer could fall to defeat. That is why many War of Worldcraft players end up buying wow gold.
Buying wow gold has an unlimited number of benefits, especially to those who love to play video games. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all is that it can help player to excel at the game. When the gold is used to purchase weapons those weapons can be used to move farther along into the game. This is a great feeling for many video game players. There are many who spend a large amount of time trying to get past a certain point and buying wow gold can eliminate that problem.
Another benefit to buying wow gold involves the buying process. Buying wow gold online is an easy process that can be completed in a few minutes. Most websites offer instant or quick delivery of wow gold after it is purchased. Simply by finding an individual or online website that offers instant delivery a person can be playing World of Warcraft with extra wow gold right away.
The other benefit of buying wow gold is that it is cheap to purchase. The cost of the wow gold will all depend on where it is being purchased from. Even though different sellers may charge different prices the price is generally low and is usually always reasonable. The small price is literally priceless for a gamer who wants to overcome a War of Worldcraft challenge.
The majority of players end up buying wow gold for one reason. That reason is to excel at the game. Even though there is a common reason for buying wow gold there are a number of different benefits to purchasing it. Each individual is likely to benefit from buying the gold in different ways.
If you are interested in buying wow gold you are encouraged to get started today. Most websites only require a credit card or PayPal account, an email address, and answers to a few simple questions to purchase wow gold. Why wait any longer when you can start reaping the benefits right now?
C.J. Preston is a writer for MMO Empire where you can find information on buying wow gold
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Get Paid to Play Video Games
Imagine receiving all the newest video games for free. Now imagine being paid up to $50 per hour to test and give your opinion about those video games. This is what a video game tester does. Video game testers play video games before they come out and tell the manufacturer what they like and dislike about the game. This way the public will get the best possible product.
People are making hundreds of dollars to test video games and give their opinions about them. You do not need any special skills to be a video game tester. All you need is the gaming system for the game your are going to test. Here is a quick way to get a job as a video game tester.
Finding a video game tester job may be difficult unless you know a programmer that works for ea games or sony. It would also be difficult to try and get a company to hire you for a video game tester position. The best way to find a video game tester job, and usually any job for that matter, is to find someone on the inside and work through them. Many companies will post these jobs on their website so just do a search for video game developers and you will find many. Go to their website and see if there is a posting for a video game tester. Here are a few to try: ea.com, capcom.com, lith.com, atari.com, and konami.com.
Once you are hired as a video game tester you will receive your games to test in your mailbox. The game will come with an assignment to fill out that will include things you like or dislike about the game. Usually the company wants you to look out for errors in the game. Make sure to read your assignment and understand what the company wants you to look for. Each company pays different and they will tell you the hourly pay. When you have completed testing the game return your findings to the company, they will most likely provide you with a return envelope for this.
Now you just have to wait for them to send you a check for being their video game tester. After completion of each job, you will get a check in the mail from the company you worked for. The best part about being a video game tester is that you get to keep the game that you tested!
This article was meant to guide you in your search for becoming a video game tester. This is a great job because you can set your own hours to play the game. Good luck in your quest to become a video game tester.
Buy wow Gold
People are making hundreds of dollars to test video games and give their opinions about them. You do not need any special skills to be a video game tester. All you need is the gaming system for the game your are going to test. Here is a quick way to get a job as a video game tester.
Finding a video game tester job may be difficult unless you know a programmer that works for ea games or sony. It would also be difficult to try and get a company to hire you for a video game tester position. The best way to find a video game tester job, and usually any job for that matter, is to find someone on the inside and work through them. Many companies will post these jobs on their website so just do a search for video game developers and you will find many. Go to their website and see if there is a posting for a video game tester. Here are a few to try: ea.com, capcom.com, lith.com, atari.com, and konami.com.
Once you are hired as a video game tester you will receive your games to test in your mailbox. The game will come with an assignment to fill out that will include things you like or dislike about the game. Usually the company wants you to look out for errors in the game. Make sure to read your assignment and understand what the company wants you to look for. Each company pays different and they will tell you the hourly pay. When you have completed testing the game return your findings to the company, they will most likely provide you with a return envelope for this.
Now you just have to wait for them to send you a check for being their video game tester. After completion of each job, you will get a check in the mail from the company you worked for. The best part about being a video game tester is that you get to keep the game that you tested!
This article was meant to guide you in your search for becoming a video game tester. This is a great job because you can set your own hours to play the game. Good luck in your quest to become a video game tester.
Buy wow Gold
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
WoW Mods - World of Warcraft Add-ons
One of the great things about World of Warcraft is that the interface can be easily customized to your own needs -- making it easier for you to travel through Azeroth. Thanks to Blizzard's making their api available, lots of players have created modifications and plugins that allow you to play more easily change the look of WoW and keep track of your items, auctions and gold.
Here’s my list of some of the more popular mods for World of Warcraft that can help make playing WoW more efficient and, also, more fun.
Auctioneer
Auctioneer is a plug-in that helps you find great deals in the Auction House. It includes a database of vendor buying & selling prices and you can use it to look up trends in pricing. With this information, you can take advantage of opportunities to buy low and sell high. It also provides information on values for a huge list of common items in-game. Auctioneer is one of the first add-ons that any good gold farming guide would advise you to pick up. It will improve your gold making significantly.
MetaMap
MetaMap is a great mod that adds tons of features to the regular World of Warcraft map. It basically allows you to arrange the interface however you prefer it to appear. You can adjust window size, opacity and position on your screen. It also contains databases for bosses and mobs . If you are leveling your character with a leveling guide like Brian’s Alliance Guide, you can important all of Brian’s waypoints right into the MetaMap module. It is a very feature rich mod.
Gatherer
Gatherer is an add-on designed for the gathering professions – herbalists, miners and treasure seekers. It will keep track of all the different places in game that you’ve found valuable commodities and provide you with the actual map coordinates. It also lets you know whenever this item is in range during your future game play.
All in One Inventory and Bank
So you’ve been out looting and you’ve got gold distributed throughout various bags. Instead of clicking each bag, you can use the All in One Inventory mod to combine your bags together. This is another very popular Warcraft mod that saves you time in-game.
Clear Fonts
Hate the fonts in Warcraft? If you feel like sometimes you are going blind from staring at the screen for hours on end, you can use the Clear Fonts add-on to brighten up all of the fonts so they pop right off the screen.
There are literally tons of World of Warcraft mods and this barely skims the surface of what’s available to adapt WoW to your needs and preferences. So take some time to explore all your options and make sure you have plenty of room to download them all.
Here’s my list of some of the more popular mods for World of Warcraft that can help make playing WoW more efficient and, also, more fun.
Auctioneer
Auctioneer is a plug-in that helps you find great deals in the Auction House. It includes a database of vendor buying & selling prices and you can use it to look up trends in pricing. With this information, you can take advantage of opportunities to buy low and sell high. It also provides information on values for a huge list of common items in-game. Auctioneer is one of the first add-ons that any good gold farming guide would advise you to pick up. It will improve your gold making significantly.
MetaMap
MetaMap is a great mod that adds tons of features to the regular World of Warcraft map. It basically allows you to arrange the interface however you prefer it to appear. You can adjust window size, opacity and position on your screen. It also contains databases for bosses and mobs . If you are leveling your character with a leveling guide like Brian’s Alliance Guide, you can important all of Brian’s waypoints right into the MetaMap module. It is a very feature rich mod.
Gatherer
Gatherer is an add-on designed for the gathering professions – herbalists, miners and treasure seekers. It will keep track of all the different places in game that you’ve found valuable commodities and provide you with the actual map coordinates. It also lets you know whenever this item is in range during your future game play.
All in One Inventory and Bank
So you’ve been out looting and you’ve got gold distributed throughout various bags. Instead of clicking each bag, you can use the All in One Inventory mod to combine your bags together. This is another very popular Warcraft mod that saves you time in-game.
Clear Fonts
Hate the fonts in Warcraft? If you feel like sometimes you are going blind from staring at the screen for hours on end, you can use the Clear Fonts add-on to brighten up all of the fonts so they pop right off the screen.
There are literally tons of World of Warcraft mods and this barely skims the surface of what’s available to adapt WoW to your needs and preferences. So take some time to explore all your options and make sure you have plenty of room to download them all.
World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide
A World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide is a guide designed especially to address all the Horde races and class in World of Warcraft and contains detailed quest and leveling instructions for people who are tired of grinding levels and trying to figure out the right ways to level up.
One of the best guides out there that has proven to be very good and very fast is Joana’s World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide.
Joana’s guide has in depth explanations, detailed quests and quest chains, it also includes maps with locations for every step of your leveling adventure plus, it has a DVD with recorded proof of this guide. Joana has played and recorded a character leveling from 1 to 70 using this exact guide so you can see for yourself what to do if you are stuck, or which you can check out if you want proof that the guide actually works.
Moreover, the guide has enough detailed information to teach you how, when and where to complete multiple quests in a single run so that you will get a well deserved experience boost without any fuss.
Therefore, no matter if you are a novice or a experienced player, a copy of Joana’s World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide will guaranteed that you improve your playing skills so much that you can even almost solo your way to level 70.
For further information and review on Joana's World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide, go to: World of Warcraft Leveling Guides
One of the best guides out there that has proven to be very good and very fast is Joana’s World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide.
Joana’s guide has in depth explanations, detailed quests and quest chains, it also includes maps with locations for every step of your leveling adventure plus, it has a DVD with recorded proof of this guide. Joana has played and recorded a character leveling from 1 to 70 using this exact guide so you can see for yourself what to do if you are stuck, or which you can check out if you want proof that the guide actually works.
Moreover, the guide has enough detailed information to teach you how, when and where to complete multiple quests in a single run so that you will get a well deserved experience boost without any fuss.
Therefore, no matter if you are a novice or a experienced player, a copy of Joana’s World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide will guaranteed that you improve your playing skills so much that you can even almost solo your way to level 70.
For further information and review on Joana's World of Warcraft Horde Leveling Guide, go to: World of Warcraft Leveling Guides
Can Playing World of Warcraft Make You Smarter
World of Warcraft is a superb game and is an invigorating experience for anyone who plays it. If you are looking for a game that will challenge you, engage you and reward you then it is the perfect title. It could even be said that playing it will make you smarter, as the game asks so much of you that you can’t help but grow as you play it.
World of Warcraft is a vast, long-lasting game that will occupy you for many hours. It contains almost infinite tasks and objectives. It is not easy to complete it, and in some ways the game is an open-ended experience. The closest thing the game has to an ending is its 60th level, and for you to reach that point requires a great deal of effort. It is an absorbing experience and will give you a thorough mental workout.
The game plays fair and has a nice learning curve, with the early levels being reasonably straightforward. After that, World of Warcraft becomes more taxing. This ensures a smooth playing experience, as you contend with escalating levels of difficulty. It is a nice progression and works as a positive challenge for the player.
World of Warcraft is complex and full of quests, with many quests on every level of the game. It is beneficial to you to complete them, and sometimes the fulfillment of one quest merely sets up another. They can be something simple like gathering and transporting items, to something more substantial and unique, like investigating the mystery of a wrecked raft, for example. The sheer variety is great and they are a good test of your problem-solving abilities.
A major part of World of Warcraft is combat and fighting. There are many monsters and opponents to overcome. It takes time and ability to become proficient at combat, and the creatures you fight only grow stronger as you advance through the game. The combat is organized in real-time and calls for an alert, quick-witted mindset. Your enemies can do serious damage to you, through cursing or disarming you, or infecting you with a disease. You will need to be clever and versatile to defeat them.
A player must learn many skills in order to succeed in World of Warcraft. It takes a lot of discipline to master them all. The skills vary depending on your character, and they include things like using magic and casting spells, creating portals, throwing missiles and fire at opponents, and tracking beasts on maps. It is good fun to learn them and it pushes you. It is not easy to reach the true potential of your character.
Success in World of Warcraft also involves good management skills. Trade is an important element of the game, and you have a number of items to manage as a result. It is only possible to carry a certain number of items around with you - you have to decide what is vital. Your gold supply is important here, as it is essential for business and buying goods. You will need to use it sensibly and wisely and calculate how much of your gold you should spend. This will put your math skills to good use.
The landscape in World of Warcraft is vast and requires constant exploration. The game encourages curiosity in a player and rewards an inquisitive nature. This is one of the most appealing aspects of the game. You are never sure what you will come across next and this hones your intuition and your instincts. There are many different zones and environments to explore. It is truly a world to become immersed in and it will be some time before you are familiar with it.
World of Warcraft’s multiplayer element is crucial in terms of the challenge that it presents. The game has many players, and interacting with them is very interesting. A player must learn to cooperate and embrace teamwork in order to progress. This is especially true of the player versus player content. When you take part in a large battle, you must work with other people and function well together as a group. This can stretch you and it takes a while to become attuned to it.
World of Warcraft then is a fascinating and demanding experience, and will be of great use to anyone who plays it. There is so much to do, so much to learn and to understand, that it will surely develop you and your abilities. It is a game of skill and intelligence and it is a terrific challenge in every way.
Read more about World of Warcraft at of World of Warcraft Gold Price List Guide web site.
World of Warcraft is a vast, long-lasting game that will occupy you for many hours. It contains almost infinite tasks and objectives. It is not easy to complete it, and in some ways the game is an open-ended experience. The closest thing the game has to an ending is its 60th level, and for you to reach that point requires a great deal of effort. It is an absorbing experience and will give you a thorough mental workout.
The game plays fair and has a nice learning curve, with the early levels being reasonably straightforward. After that, World of Warcraft becomes more taxing. This ensures a smooth playing experience, as you contend with escalating levels of difficulty. It is a nice progression and works as a positive challenge for the player.
World of Warcraft is complex and full of quests, with many quests on every level of the game. It is beneficial to you to complete them, and sometimes the fulfillment of one quest merely sets up another. They can be something simple like gathering and transporting items, to something more substantial and unique, like investigating the mystery of a wrecked raft, for example. The sheer variety is great and they are a good test of your problem-solving abilities.
A major part of World of Warcraft is combat and fighting. There are many monsters and opponents to overcome. It takes time and ability to become proficient at combat, and the creatures you fight only grow stronger as you advance through the game. The combat is organized in real-time and calls for an alert, quick-witted mindset. Your enemies can do serious damage to you, through cursing or disarming you, or infecting you with a disease. You will need to be clever and versatile to defeat them.
A player must learn many skills in order to succeed in World of Warcraft. It takes a lot of discipline to master them all. The skills vary depending on your character, and they include things like using magic and casting spells, creating portals, throwing missiles and fire at opponents, and tracking beasts on maps. It is good fun to learn them and it pushes you. It is not easy to reach the true potential of your character.
Success in World of Warcraft also involves good management skills. Trade is an important element of the game, and you have a number of items to manage as a result. It is only possible to carry a certain number of items around with you - you have to decide what is vital. Your gold supply is important here, as it is essential for business and buying goods. You will need to use it sensibly and wisely and calculate how much of your gold you should spend. This will put your math skills to good use.
The landscape in World of Warcraft is vast and requires constant exploration. The game encourages curiosity in a player and rewards an inquisitive nature. This is one of the most appealing aspects of the game. You are never sure what you will come across next and this hones your intuition and your instincts. There are many different zones and environments to explore. It is truly a world to become immersed in and it will be some time before you are familiar with it.
World of Warcraft’s multiplayer element is crucial in terms of the challenge that it presents. The game has many players, and interacting with them is very interesting. A player must learn to cooperate and embrace teamwork in order to progress. This is especially true of the player versus player content. When you take part in a large battle, you must work with other people and function well together as a group. This can stretch you and it takes a while to become attuned to it.
World of Warcraft then is a fascinating and demanding experience, and will be of great use to anyone who plays it. There is so much to do, so much to learn and to understand, that it will surely develop you and your abilities. It is a game of skill and intelligence and it is a terrific challenge in every way.
Read more about World of Warcraft at of World of Warcraft Gold Price List Guide web site.
World of Warcraft, could it be killing our teens
The parents of a teenage son who committed suicide just over a year ago claim that their son become addicted to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. They believe that as a result of this addiction he took his own life. Now these parents are suing World of WarCraft developers Blizzard Entertainment, blaming the game developers for the tragic loss of their son.
The details of just how many hours this teen had been playing World of Warcraft prior to his death has not yet been published. Just what would constitute an addiction is hard to quantify. The generally accepted medical definition of an addiction is; a habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control. So using this definition as a guide we could assume he had no control over how often he sat down to play the online role playing game.
Looking at a common addiction many people can relate to, smoking. Nobody would claim that the actual act of smoking could lead to anybody’s death. Rather it is the chemicals being inhaled while smoking that have been linked to various diseases leading to a potential premature death. Following this same logic we could then say that spending large amounts of your day playing World of Warcraft could not kill you. So the real problem in this case most be something else.
Examining suicide we should look at what really causes someone to take their own life. While a lot more research on the subject is still needed, it is believed that some type of psychiatric disorder, depression being the most common is the leading cause of suicide. If properly diagnosed most mental health problems can be treated and controlled. The difficulty is for people to realize that they have a problem and to go and seek treatment. The unfortunate stigma still attached to mental health problems leads many to go without getting treatment for what could be a highly treatable disease.
Looking back at the case at hand, we can see that a teen playing World of Warcraft too much could definitely be a potential sign that something is wrong. People who have difficulty dealing with reality or interacting with people are two possible signs of a mental health disease. So every parent should be aware of this, and if their children are using computer games as a way to withdraw from friends and family they should definitely seek profession medical advice, it just might save their child’s life.
The details of just how many hours this teen had been playing World of Warcraft prior to his death has not yet been published. Just what would constitute an addiction is hard to quantify. The generally accepted medical definition of an addiction is; a habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control. So using this definition as a guide we could assume he had no control over how often he sat down to play the online role playing game.
Looking at a common addiction many people can relate to, smoking. Nobody would claim that the actual act of smoking could lead to anybody’s death. Rather it is the chemicals being inhaled while smoking that have been linked to various diseases leading to a potential premature death. Following this same logic we could then say that spending large amounts of your day playing World of Warcraft could not kill you. So the real problem in this case most be something else.
Examining suicide we should look at what really causes someone to take their own life. While a lot more research on the subject is still needed, it is believed that some type of psychiatric disorder, depression being the most common is the leading cause of suicide. If properly diagnosed most mental health problems can be treated and controlled. The difficulty is for people to realize that they have a problem and to go and seek treatment. The unfortunate stigma still attached to mental health problems leads many to go without getting treatment for what could be a highly treatable disease.
Looking back at the case at hand, we can see that a teen playing World of Warcraft too much could definitely be a potential sign that something is wrong. People who have difficulty dealing with reality or interacting with people are two possible signs of a mental health disease. So every parent should be aware of this, and if their children are using computer games as a way to withdraw from friends and family they should definitely seek profession medical advice, it just might save their child’s life.
World of Warcraft: Keep it Casual!
Although I am allegedly an adult now, I have to be honest: I love video games. I have been playing them since my parents bought our first computer when I was 5 (a QL Sinclair, no less, for those who remember it), and got my first Nintendo Entertainment System a year later, and a Sega Genesis a few years after that. I even vaguely recall playing the Atari 2600 when I was really small. I grew up on Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Civilization. In high school, I played MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons), the textual predecessor to today’s Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs).
Given my lifelong enjoyment of games, I always thought of myself as a bit of a "gamer." Sure, there are people more into gaming than me, but I have years of experience. Sometimes I even wondered if I was wasting too much of my time playing games. I could be doing other things, after all: reading, studying, working, taking walks in the park. Staring at a computer screen moving a fake character around killing fake creatures with a fake weapon probably isn’t the most productive way to spend my time.
A few years ago, I picked up what was, and still is, deemed to be the jewel of the MMORPG catalog: World of Warcraft. With over 8 million subscribers across the world, dozens of servers, and a brand new expansion pack that has revitalized some of its content, WoW, for short, has become a genuine worldwide phenomenon. I began playing WoW shortly after it was released: I made a character, did some quests, and killed some giant bugs. It’s fun, and I still play it.
It was also World of Warcraft that made me realize that I am not, in any real sense of the word, a serious "gamer."
Part of World of Warcraft’s appeal is its success in attracting hardcore and casual gamers alike. Unlike most MMORPGs, dying in World of Warcraft doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg: a few minutes to get to your body and a few coins to repair your damaged equipment, and you’re no worse for the wear. WoW also encourages players to [i]not[i] play by giving double experience points to players who don’t log in, enabling players who can’t dedicate half their waking hours to the game a reasonable chance to get into some of the more advanced (and often more fun) content.
Nonetheless, World of Warcraft has a large hardcore fan base. Some of the most serious gamers play for hours – sometimes even days -- on end, barely stopping to eat, drink, sleep, or take care of personal hygiene. A player in South Korea even died of exhaustion last year after a marathon gaming session where he spent his days and nights in a PC café playing World of Warcraft, hardly sleeping, and living off of instant noodles.
That is, of course, an extreme case. But after reading through conversations on forums of World of Warcraft players, looking at guild websites, and seeing many of them online, I have to wonder: is the game even fun anymore? Many of the top-notch WoW players are obsessed with the cold, hard numbers that run the engine of the game, rather than the actual entertainment aspect of it. Getting the highest percentage of damage reduction from a set of armor, finding the best combination of weapons and trinkets to deal the most damage, finding or writing macros to automate many functions in the game, organizing huge raids that take hours to complete, spending large chunks of time "grinding" solely to gain levels or money, trying to become the strongest guild or the best player, or some other objectives that more resemble a military operation than an enjoyable past time.
Don’t get me wrong – I am not knocking people who do enjoy that type of thing. I’m sure many get genuine satisfaction from those aspects of the game. I have noticed, however, that to some players, World of Warcraft seems more like an obligation – a job – instead of a few hours of fantasy.
If they saw me online, many of these players would probably be quick to label me a "n00b," a rather annoying and generally derogatory term for a "newbie," someone who is just beginning to play and doesn’t know the ins, outs, and secrets of the game. After all, I actually read the dialogue of the non-player characters (NPCs) when they hand me a quest. I take my time strolling through the wilderness of the game, looking at the scenery of new areas, admiring the detailed artwork that went into many of the creatures and trying to enjoy the atmosphere of the immersive world. In two and a half years of playing World of Warcraft, my highest character is level 47. By contrast, many of the top players have several characters at level 60 or level 70.
Could I zip my character up several levels if I wanted to? Sure. If I decided to put in the time and dedicated myself to getting my character to level 70, I’m sure I could do it. But truth be told, I don’t want to. I am happy strolling through my World of Warcraft "life," admiring the scenery, and just having fun. As with so many things, even in real life, it is the journey, much more than the destination, that is worthwhile.
When I first read about World of Warcraft targeting casual gamers, I ignored it. I always assumed it didn’t apply to me. When I heard the Nintendo Wii was targeting casual gamers, and the Playstation 3 was for the hardcore crowd, I was ready to drop the 800 bucks for Sony’s hardware powerhouse. Today, I own a Wii, and love it. I play World of Warcraft, and with my puny level 47 character, have a blast for the few hours a week I use it.
I’m not going to preach tired clichés like "turn off TV, turn on life." There’s nothing wrong with having fun, be it throwing a ball around, reading a fiction book, watching a movie – or, playing a video game. But that’s just it: it should be fun. If it’s not, what’s the point? I already have a job. The last thing I need is a second one.
A Newcomer’s Guide to World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft has been massively successful and has exceeded the normal popularity of a role-playing title. The main reason for this is that it is very accessible and straightforward, and it is not difficult to play it. Even if you are completely new to gaming you shouldn’t have any problems getting started.
World of Warcraft is an easy game to set up. It comes on 4 discs that you install on your computer. You then have to create a game account. Your access to the game’s world involves paying a monthly subscription via credit card or an equivalent. The typical subscription rate is $14.95 per month. The first month is usually free as part of your purchase. The subscription can be paid every month, or every three months or six months if you prefer.
World of Warcraft operates through a series of servers that differ depending on where you are in the world. The servers are positioned globally and you simply connect to whichever one is local to you. The servers allow you to access the game. They are a reliable system and well maintained. There are different types of servers for each type of action that you play, whether it is role-playing or player versus player, for example. The servers are named as realms in order to increase the feel of the game.
World of Warcraft takes place in the world of Azeroth, a fictional land that has been the setting for all of the Warcraft games. This world has its own history and myths.
It was created by ancient gods, who gave rise to the earliest races on the planet. Azeroth resembles our own world and has recognisable landmarks like cities, forests, caverns, towers, dungeons and other structures. Azeroth has seen much trouble in its time, and its past has included great wars and conflict.
The universe in World of Warcraft is imaginative and is the home to many races.
The world of Azeroth is structured as three continents - the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Northrend. They all have their own inhabitants and climate. The Eastern Kingdoms are the home of humans, dwarves and gnomes, who are known collectively as The Alliance. Kalimdor is the home of tauren, orcs and trolls, who are known collectively as The Horde. Northrend is the home of the wicked Lich King.
Although World of Warcraft is rich and detailed, it is an easy game to understand.
All characters tend to belong to one of two groups, the Alliance and the Horde. The Alliance seems good in nature while the Horde is generally more evil. The Alliance characters are attractive to look at and are considered pretty, while the Horde characters are ugly and less appealing. You can play as characters from either group, and they each possess their own personalities and strengths.
World of Warcraft allows you to design your own character and customise them as you see fit. The character that you create can be one of nine possible classes. The classes include choices like druids, hunters, mages, rogues, shamans and warriors. Every class has its own skills and professions. You will use these talents to help you in the game. The process of creating a character is simple, and it allows you to express your own identity, as your character is a reflection of yourself.
The gameplay in World of Warcraft concentrates on exploration. The main game contains sixty levels, all of which feature much territory to explore. There are many items in the game that you can either take for yourself or trade. The main currency in Azeroth is gold, and you will need to collect a lot of it to buy armour and weapons and other useful goods. There is also a great deal of combat and you must defeat many monsters and creatures in order to progress.
World of Warcraft is designed beautifully, and you will find it a pleasure to learn how everything functions and works. The control system is sensible and makes good use of the keyboard and mouse. The game includes a camera that allows you to look around and have a full view of your environment. In general, it is a clear and comprehensible experience.
World of Warcraft is a very entertaining game and is easy to play. Its strength is that you don’t need to have detailed knowledge or experience of the role-playing genre to enjoy it. Even though the game contains a large and detailed world you will not have a problem understanding it. This is a perfect game for any kind of player.
Read more about this and other topics at of Cheap World of Warcraft Gold Price List Guide.
World of Warcraft is an easy game to set up. It comes on 4 discs that you install on your computer. You then have to create a game account. Your access to the game’s world involves paying a monthly subscription via credit card or an equivalent. The typical subscription rate is $14.95 per month. The first month is usually free as part of your purchase. The subscription can be paid every month, or every three months or six months if you prefer.
World of Warcraft operates through a series of servers that differ depending on where you are in the world. The servers are positioned globally and you simply connect to whichever one is local to you. The servers allow you to access the game. They are a reliable system and well maintained. There are different types of servers for each type of action that you play, whether it is role-playing or player versus player, for example. The servers are named as realms in order to increase the feel of the game.
World of Warcraft takes place in the world of Azeroth, a fictional land that has been the setting for all of the Warcraft games. This world has its own history and myths.
It was created by ancient gods, who gave rise to the earliest races on the planet. Azeroth resembles our own world and has recognisable landmarks like cities, forests, caverns, towers, dungeons and other structures. Azeroth has seen much trouble in its time, and its past has included great wars and conflict.
The universe in World of Warcraft is imaginative and is the home to many races.
The world of Azeroth is structured as three continents - the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Northrend. They all have their own inhabitants and climate. The Eastern Kingdoms are the home of humans, dwarves and gnomes, who are known collectively as The Alliance. Kalimdor is the home of tauren, orcs and trolls, who are known collectively as The Horde. Northrend is the home of the wicked Lich King.
Although World of Warcraft is rich and detailed, it is an easy game to understand.
All characters tend to belong to one of two groups, the Alliance and the Horde. The Alliance seems good in nature while the Horde is generally more evil. The Alliance characters are attractive to look at and are considered pretty, while the Horde characters are ugly and less appealing. You can play as characters from either group, and they each possess their own personalities and strengths.
World of Warcraft allows you to design your own character and customise them as you see fit. The character that you create can be one of nine possible classes. The classes include choices like druids, hunters, mages, rogues, shamans and warriors. Every class has its own skills and professions. You will use these talents to help you in the game. The process of creating a character is simple, and it allows you to express your own identity, as your character is a reflection of yourself.
The gameplay in World of Warcraft concentrates on exploration. The main game contains sixty levels, all of which feature much territory to explore. There are many items in the game that you can either take for yourself or trade. The main currency in Azeroth is gold, and you will need to collect a lot of it to buy armour and weapons and other useful goods. There is also a great deal of combat and you must defeat many monsters and creatures in order to progress.
World of Warcraft is designed beautifully, and you will find it a pleasure to learn how everything functions and works. The control system is sensible and makes good use of the keyboard and mouse. The game includes a camera that allows you to look around and have a full view of your environment. In general, it is a clear and comprehensible experience.
World of Warcraft is a very entertaining game and is easy to play. Its strength is that you don’t need to have detailed knowledge or experience of the role-playing genre to enjoy it. Even though the game contains a large and detailed world you will not have a problem understanding it. This is a perfect game for any kind of player.
Read more about this and other topics at of Cheap World of Warcraft Gold Price List Guide.
Girl Gamers in World of Warcraft
To the dismay of much of the population of World of Warcraft, and the online community, girls do play video games. What makes a girl play a game online? Are they looking to pick up boys? Are they so socially inept that they can’t talk to anyone in the real world? Are they just plain ugly? Or are they really just a guy pretending to be a girl? None of these things are true. They play the game for the same reason everyone plays. They play for entertainment. Though women in the real life are striving for equality in a male dominated world, and arguably making progress, the ladies playing online games have a much harder task in front of them.
The exact ratio of female players to male players in WOW is not known, but it is a far lower number than in the real world. Roderick, of the Mal’Ganis Server estimates, "I’d guess I know maybe ten girl players on this server." Roderick ran a guild of over 200 people, that’s a staggeringly low percentage. With that sort of male saturation, girl gamers can have a tough time breaking into the "boys club" that exists beneath the surface.
The male population of the any online community, WOW included, is highly competitive, and the general feeling in an aggressive activity is that girls cannot perform on the same level as boys. On the virtual battlefield its far from true, but girl gamers are still considered underdogs and have to prove themselves worthy. They may come under harder scrutiny simply because they are female.
Because of the disposition some of the guys have on women gamers; some girls actively try to hide their gender. This isn’t hard, since according to Cezzani of Mal’Ganis, "Ninety percent of female characters are played by ten percent of the guys." Whether or not those figures are close to accurate, the point remains the same. There are enough girl characters running around WOW that a real female can hide her gender simply by not admitting to it.
Those that hide their gender do it for a reason, to avoid the stereotypes and sexual harassment. It may be due to the age or maturity of the individual talking to the girl gamer, or perhaps because there are seemingly no repercussions in an online community where you can log off and not have to deal with the consequences. WOW has a strict policy against any sort of threatening or hurtful communications that removes the anonymity from it. In severe cases Blizzard will revoke the players account, taking away their character and possessions. But the same problems that exist in the real world exist in the virtual world. Many of the women who go through the torture of this abuse will never report it.
The male gamers must learn respect for the female gamers. They are not there simply to pick up guys nor as part of the entertainment for male players. They don’t want to be hit on, or asked what they look like in real life. They will accept kindness, and will often times be friendly, but that is no indication that they are less of a gamer than anyone else who plays in a virtual world like WOW.
Read more about this and other World of Warcraft topics at Cheap WOW Gold Price List.
The exact ratio of female players to male players in WOW is not known, but it is a far lower number than in the real world. Roderick, of the Mal’Ganis Server estimates, "I’d guess I know maybe ten girl players on this server." Roderick ran a guild of over 200 people, that’s a staggeringly low percentage. With that sort of male saturation, girl gamers can have a tough time breaking into the "boys club" that exists beneath the surface.
The male population of the any online community, WOW included, is highly competitive, and the general feeling in an aggressive activity is that girls cannot perform on the same level as boys. On the virtual battlefield its far from true, but girl gamers are still considered underdogs and have to prove themselves worthy. They may come under harder scrutiny simply because they are female.
Because of the disposition some of the guys have on women gamers; some girls actively try to hide their gender. This isn’t hard, since according to Cezzani of Mal’Ganis, "Ninety percent of female characters are played by ten percent of the guys." Whether or not those figures are close to accurate, the point remains the same. There are enough girl characters running around WOW that a real female can hide her gender simply by not admitting to it.
Those that hide their gender do it for a reason, to avoid the stereotypes and sexual harassment. It may be due to the age or maturity of the individual talking to the girl gamer, or perhaps because there are seemingly no repercussions in an online community where you can log off and not have to deal with the consequences. WOW has a strict policy against any sort of threatening or hurtful communications that removes the anonymity from it. In severe cases Blizzard will revoke the players account, taking away their character and possessions. But the same problems that exist in the real world exist in the virtual world. Many of the women who go through the torture of this abuse will never report it.
The male gamers must learn respect for the female gamers. They are not there simply to pick up guys nor as part of the entertainment for male players. They don’t want to be hit on, or asked what they look like in real life. They will accept kindness, and will often times be friendly, but that is no indication that they are less of a gamer than anyone else who plays in a virtual world like WOW.
Read more about this and other World of Warcraft topics at Cheap WOW Gold Price List.
Blizzard's World of Warcraft More Than Just A Game
The way you play World of Warcraft or WoW, is you create a character either on the Alliance or Horde faction, which are enemies. You choose your race and class in typical RPG style, such as a gnomish magician or undead warlock. Some classes can only be played on one faction but that is changing when The Burning Crusade expansion is released this January.
Once your character is introduced into the world of Azeroth (the name of the game world) you gain experience and levels by killing mobs (non-player character enemies) and completing quests. Quests can be aquired from various sources, such as NPCs or by finding certain items. Quests usually give a nice amount of experience and often useful items so leveling is faster if you do quests as much as you can.
Items and armor are major parts of playing WoW. Along with a character's level, the gear he or she is wearing and using is a sort of status symbol. Lower level players stare in awe at a maximum level character decked out in dazzling suits of armor. Armor and other items are found on mobs, given out in quests or obtained in a group or raid instance.
Grouping is a major part of playing World of Warcraft. Soloing all the way to the maximum level of 60 (70 with The Burning Crusade) is entirely possible but grouping has many advantages. A good group can accomplish a lot more than a single player can.
Killing mobs over and over for experience, or grinding as it is referred to, can be easier and faster with a group of people. Questing can also be faster when the whole group finishes a quest in a single step, whereas the solo player had to do that step by him or herself. Instances, for example, which are places where players enter their own private dungeon, often require a group or even a raid.
Raiding is where things get really exciting. Some instances require many players to crawl through and clear out and have boss mobs that are impossible to kill by one player. Up to 40 players, usually all in the same guild, have to strategize to find a way to defeat a particular high-end boss mob.
World of Warcraft even has its own economy where items are bought and sold in Auction Houses. These items are valuable to players, so some people pay a lot of in-game money or gold for them. Players have taken this economy into the real world by selling gold to other players for real currency and some people even sell whole WoW accounts.
Blizzard isn't too fond of this whole idea but they don't try to crack down on it much. Some players spend their time on WoW
Once your character is introduced into the world of Azeroth (the name of the game world) you gain experience and levels by killing mobs (non-player character enemies) and completing quests. Quests can be aquired from various sources, such as NPCs or by finding certain items. Quests usually give a nice amount of experience and often useful items so leveling is faster if you do quests as much as you can.
Items and armor are major parts of playing WoW. Along with a character's level, the gear he or she is wearing and using is a sort of status symbol. Lower level players stare in awe at a maximum level character decked out in dazzling suits of armor. Armor and other items are found on mobs, given out in quests or obtained in a group or raid instance.
Grouping is a major part of playing World of Warcraft. Soloing all the way to the maximum level of 60 (70 with The Burning Crusade) is entirely possible but grouping has many advantages. A good group can accomplish a lot more than a single player can.
Killing mobs over and over for experience, or grinding as it is referred to, can be easier and faster with a group of people. Questing can also be faster when the whole group finishes a quest in a single step, whereas the solo player had to do that step by him or herself. Instances, for example, which are places where players enter their own private dungeon, often require a group or even a raid.
Raiding is where things get really exciting. Some instances require many players to crawl through and clear out and have boss mobs that are impossible to kill by one player. Up to 40 players, usually all in the same guild, have to strategize to find a way to defeat a particular high-end boss mob.
World of Warcraft even has its own economy where items are bought and sold in Auction Houses. These items are valuable to players, so some people pay a lot of in-game money or gold for them. Players have taken this economy into the real world by selling gold to other players for real currency and some people even sell whole WoW accounts.
Blizzard isn't too fond of this whole idea but they don't try to crack down on it much. Some players spend their time on WoW
Who Plays World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft has developed an enormous following since its release in November 2004. It has built upon its initial success to become an enduring and hugely popular title. The demand for the game has been stronger than its creators might have expected, and it is now a fully-fledged social phenomenon, attracting all kinds of people to its world.
World of Warcraft has enjoyed global success and acclaim. It seemed natural that it would do well in America, where there was anticipation for a new Warcraft title. The truth though is that it has taken off everywhere it has been released. It has been a massive hit in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Europe, and has many international fans and subscribers. The game has a simple, universal appeal that transcends language barriers and geography.
One of World of Warcraft’s strengths is that it appeals to both casual gamers and more experienced players. The game has made the online multiplayer genre more accessible to people who might not normally play it. A lot of people who try the game may have regarded the genre as too complex or may not have played a role-playing game before. It is the quality of World of Warcraft and the buzz surrounding it that has drawn people’s attention towards it.
World of Warcraft has a huge following on the Internet. There is an official site that is busy and informative and contains forums for the game’s subscribers. There are many other fan sites as well. It has a keen fan base made up of a broad cross section of society. People enjoy the game for all sorts of reasons, with fans citing the gorgeous graphics, addictive gameplay and unique characters as elements they find appealing.
Although World of Warcraft has the visual style of a cartoon, it is a game that people of any age can enjoy. All age groups play it, from children to seniors. This leads to an interesting online environment, as younger players interact with older gamers. It is a real mix of people, as children and teenagers share the game’s world with twenty year olds and more mature, middle-aged players and older. It is a friendly, lively environment and tends to be good-natured and welcoming.
The World of Warcraft universe is a happy, thriving community. There is a strong social aspect to it and players can become friends with each other. The game’s world of Azeroth follows the real world’s calendar and so they mark holidays and seasonal events in the game. On New Year’s Eve in 2005 there were parties and celebrations in Azeroth that all players could attend. It is features like this that make its world much more vivid, colorful and convincing.
There is a fan convention for World of Warcraft. The game’s developer Blizzard held an event in October 2005 named BlizzCon, for fans of Warcraft and their other titles. World of Warcraft was a major part of this event, and one of the main attractions was a preview of the game’s expansion, The Burning Crusade. Some 8,000 people attended the event, which is expected to become an annual occurrence. Families went together and fans dressed up in costume as their favorite characters from the game.
World of Warcraft has caught people’s imagination and this has led to a variety of creative offshoots. One key sign of the game’s popularity is the existence of Warcraft fan fiction. Players like to write fictional stories about the characters and events of the game. Fan art is also popular. People draw and paint images inspired by the game and post them in galleries online. Blizzard run their own Fan Art Program that fans can submit their art to for display. There is great creativity and beauty there.
The broad appeal of World of Warcraft is such that it has infiltrated popular culture.
The game has been used as an answer on the quiz show Jeopardy. It also has celebrity admirers. The comedian Dave Chappelle is a fan. Chappelle talked about the game during a stand-up performance in San Francisco in 2005. "You know what I’ve been playing a lot of?" the comedian reportedly asked the audience, "World of Warcraft!" He praised the game and expressed his delight with it.
World of Warcraft then is a game that has broken new ground to appeal to a great number of people in society. With more than five million subscribers, it is now the most popular online role-playing game and has grown far beyond its cult origins. Its wide appeal speaks of the brilliance of the game itself.
Read more about this and other World of Warcraft topics at Buy World of Warcraft Gold
World of Warcraft has enjoyed global success and acclaim. It seemed natural that it would do well in America, where there was anticipation for a new Warcraft title. The truth though is that it has taken off everywhere it has been released. It has been a massive hit in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Europe, and has many international fans and subscribers. The game has a simple, universal appeal that transcends language barriers and geography.
One of World of Warcraft’s strengths is that it appeals to both casual gamers and more experienced players. The game has made the online multiplayer genre more accessible to people who might not normally play it. A lot of people who try the game may have regarded the genre as too complex or may not have played a role-playing game before. It is the quality of World of Warcraft and the buzz surrounding it that has drawn people’s attention towards it.
World of Warcraft has a huge following on the Internet. There is an official site that is busy and informative and contains forums for the game’s subscribers. There are many other fan sites as well. It has a keen fan base made up of a broad cross section of society. People enjoy the game for all sorts of reasons, with fans citing the gorgeous graphics, addictive gameplay and unique characters as elements they find appealing.
Although World of Warcraft has the visual style of a cartoon, it is a game that people of any age can enjoy. All age groups play it, from children to seniors. This leads to an interesting online environment, as younger players interact with older gamers. It is a real mix of people, as children and teenagers share the game’s world with twenty year olds and more mature, middle-aged players and older. It is a friendly, lively environment and tends to be good-natured and welcoming.
The World of Warcraft universe is a happy, thriving community. There is a strong social aspect to it and players can become friends with each other. The game’s world of Azeroth follows the real world’s calendar and so they mark holidays and seasonal events in the game. On New Year’s Eve in 2005 there were parties and celebrations in Azeroth that all players could attend. It is features like this that make its world much more vivid, colorful and convincing.
There is a fan convention for World of Warcraft. The game’s developer Blizzard held an event in October 2005 named BlizzCon, for fans of Warcraft and their other titles. World of Warcraft was a major part of this event, and one of the main attractions was a preview of the game’s expansion, The Burning Crusade. Some 8,000 people attended the event, which is expected to become an annual occurrence. Families went together and fans dressed up in costume as their favorite characters from the game.
World of Warcraft has caught people’s imagination and this has led to a variety of creative offshoots. One key sign of the game’s popularity is the existence of Warcraft fan fiction. Players like to write fictional stories about the characters and events of the game. Fan art is also popular. People draw and paint images inspired by the game and post them in galleries online. Blizzard run their own Fan Art Program that fans can submit their art to for display. There is great creativity and beauty there.
The broad appeal of World of Warcraft is such that it has infiltrated popular culture.
The game has been used as an answer on the quiz show Jeopardy. It also has celebrity admirers. The comedian Dave Chappelle is a fan. Chappelle talked about the game during a stand-up performance in San Francisco in 2005. "You know what I’ve been playing a lot of?" the comedian reportedly asked the audience, "World of Warcraft!" He praised the game and expressed his delight with it.
World of Warcraft then is a game that has broken new ground to appeal to a great number of people in society. With more than five million subscribers, it is now the most popular online role-playing game and has grown far beyond its cult origins. Its wide appeal speaks of the brilliance of the game itself.
Read more about this and other World of Warcraft topics at Buy World of Warcraft Gold
Best Practices For A Warrior In World of Warcraft
The Job of the Warrior is to get relentlessly beat upon. While there are a handful of classes in World of Warcraft that have the capability to tank, the Warrior stands above them all with more talents, abilities and equipment geared for the role. In a group setting, if the warrior dies first, they died knowing they did their job to the best of their abilities. Some players are better at holding the agro from the monsters than others, but it’s a common adage that effective tanking is 10% gear, 10% talent build and 80% skill.
A large part of effective tanking is outside the hands of the warrior. One common fallacy held by the players of World of Warcraft is that if a tank loses control of a monster, he’s a bad tank. While this very well could be true, the case could actually be quite the opposite. There is a limited number of things a Warrior can do to generate threat on a creature. Assuming that the skill, talents build are in place and the gear collected, he can build a lot of threat. There is an upper limit to the threat obtainable. When a character is assigned to tank, he will not be generating the majority of his threat from dealing damage to a target. Outside of the Warrior class, dealing damage is the best way to increase threat on a monster. Over a period of time, the threat from damage caused by another character can overcome the threat generated by the tank. In such a situation, as long as the warrior was using all his abilities to their maximum effectiveness, there’s nothing else he could have done to keep the focus of the enemy. A party who knows this, and can manage their own threat makes the tanks life that much easier. At lower levels, the group tends to blame the tank if he loses control of the monster. In the end game forty man instances, the smart groups tend to blame the player who pulled the target for not managing his own threat.
Warriors are very dependant on the sort of gear they use. If the goal is to play the higher intensity raid instances, a lot of time will be spent gathering up the equipment. For a tank, there are three main things to look at while gathering gear: Stamina, Armor Rating, and Defense. Stamina gives the character ten hit points per point. That may not seem like a lot, but just like pennies in a piggy back, it starts adding up. Armor Rating lowers the incoming damage percentage. Defense ups the skill of the same name, and lowers the chance that enemies will critically hit the tank by a percentage point for every twenty five points of defense. Thankfully, World of Warcraft offers many different dungeons to crawl in order to gather equipment with all of these perks. On epic pieces of armor, players will find bonuses to blocking skill or dodge percentages, and those are nice too, but those will only come after time spent tanking. There will be a long time when the characters will be relying on uncommon and rare equipment that is much easier to obtain.
Of the 51 talent points World of Warcraft offers its players, eighteen of those should be dedicated to the protection tree. For a tank to excel at his job, it is in his best interest to send points on the talents Defiance, Toughness and Last Stand. Neither five point talent on the first tier of talents a warrior can access truly outdoes the other, one raises the chance to block with a shield, the other raises the characters natural defense. Both are good options, yet not required for optimum tanking. On the second tier, five points in Toughness gives you ten percent more armor contribution, and at the high armor ratings a warrior can achieve this talent can decrease all incoming damage by up to five percent. Also on tier two is the Improved Bloodrage talent. This two point talent is useful, but not required to tank. It is required to gain access to the tier three talent Last Stand. Last stand increases the warriors current and maximum hit points by thirty percent for twenty seconds, great for the times when that heal is coming just a second too late. Lastly, the Defiance talent raises the threat generated by the warrior by fifteen percent. Without all these talents, the warrior is not able to tank to the best of the class’s ability.
The gear is in place, the talent build is good, but the most important thing to tank effectively is the skill. Its not hard to tank. It just takes knowledge. Sunder Armor is the staple of every tanks retinue. It is the most efficient way to gather rage early in a fight, and it makes the enemy easier to kill by lowering its armor rating. Another ability widely used is Heroic Strike. Some tanks use these two abilities and they manage to control the monster. In a prolonged fight, this will not be enough. There are three abilities other than sunder armor that allow the tank to gain as much agro as possible. Shield block, while not an threat generating ability in itself, it guarantees a block, which in turn allows the tank to use the Revenge ability. Revenge is the lowest cost and highest threat generating ability in the game. Finally, Shield Bash, a high threat producing ability used primarily to stop a spell caster from casting can be used liberally on non-magical foes to generate high amounts of threat. Each of these abilities should be used when they are cooled down and available. Once the basics of tanking are understood, each individual player can add their own flavor to the game and improve on their own abilities.
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A large part of effective tanking is outside the hands of the warrior. One common fallacy held by the players of World of Warcraft is that if a tank loses control of a monster, he’s a bad tank. While this very well could be true, the case could actually be quite the opposite. There is a limited number of things a Warrior can do to generate threat on a creature. Assuming that the skill, talents build are in place and the gear collected, he can build a lot of threat. There is an upper limit to the threat obtainable. When a character is assigned to tank, he will not be generating the majority of his threat from dealing damage to a target. Outside of the Warrior class, dealing damage is the best way to increase threat on a monster. Over a period of time, the threat from damage caused by another character can overcome the threat generated by the tank. In such a situation, as long as the warrior was using all his abilities to their maximum effectiveness, there’s nothing else he could have done to keep the focus of the enemy. A party who knows this, and can manage their own threat makes the tanks life that much easier. At lower levels, the group tends to blame the tank if he loses control of the monster. In the end game forty man instances, the smart groups tend to blame the player who pulled the target for not managing his own threat.
Warriors are very dependant on the sort of gear they use. If the goal is to play the higher intensity raid instances, a lot of time will be spent gathering up the equipment. For a tank, there are three main things to look at while gathering gear: Stamina, Armor Rating, and Defense. Stamina gives the character ten hit points per point. That may not seem like a lot, but just like pennies in a piggy back, it starts adding up. Armor Rating lowers the incoming damage percentage. Defense ups the skill of the same name, and lowers the chance that enemies will critically hit the tank by a percentage point for every twenty five points of defense. Thankfully, World of Warcraft offers many different dungeons to crawl in order to gather equipment with all of these perks. On epic pieces of armor, players will find bonuses to blocking skill or dodge percentages, and those are nice too, but those will only come after time spent tanking. There will be a long time when the characters will be relying on uncommon and rare equipment that is much easier to obtain.
Of the 51 talent points World of Warcraft offers its players, eighteen of those should be dedicated to the protection tree. For a tank to excel at his job, it is in his best interest to send points on the talents Defiance, Toughness and Last Stand. Neither five point talent on the first tier of talents a warrior can access truly outdoes the other, one raises the chance to block with a shield, the other raises the characters natural defense. Both are good options, yet not required for optimum tanking. On the second tier, five points in Toughness gives you ten percent more armor contribution, and at the high armor ratings a warrior can achieve this talent can decrease all incoming damage by up to five percent. Also on tier two is the Improved Bloodrage talent. This two point talent is useful, but not required to tank. It is required to gain access to the tier three talent Last Stand. Last stand increases the warriors current and maximum hit points by thirty percent for twenty seconds, great for the times when that heal is coming just a second too late. Lastly, the Defiance talent raises the threat generated by the warrior by fifteen percent. Without all these talents, the warrior is not able to tank to the best of the class’s ability.
The gear is in place, the talent build is good, but the most important thing to tank effectively is the skill. Its not hard to tank. It just takes knowledge. Sunder Armor is the staple of every tanks retinue. It is the most efficient way to gather rage early in a fight, and it makes the enemy easier to kill by lowering its armor rating. Another ability widely used is Heroic Strike. Some tanks use these two abilities and they manage to control the monster. In a prolonged fight, this will not be enough. There are three abilities other than sunder armor that allow the tank to gain as much agro as possible. Shield block, while not an threat generating ability in itself, it guarantees a block, which in turn allows the tank to use the Revenge ability. Revenge is the lowest cost and highest threat generating ability in the game. Finally, Shield Bash, a high threat producing ability used primarily to stop a spell caster from casting can be used liberally on non-magical foes to generate high amounts of threat. Each of these abilities should be used when they are cooled down and available. Once the basics of tanking are understood, each individual player can add their own flavor to the game and improve on their own abilities.
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World of Warcraft Review
World of Warcraft is by far the best and largest MMORPG out yet. World of Warcraft follows a long history of the original strategy game warcraft. There were 3 popular titles that were released previously that were also an extremely big hit. Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III and the 2 expansions "The Frozen Throne" and "Reign of Chaos". The release date of the game was on Nov 23, 2004. A year after its release and there are about 4.5 million subscribers and still growing stronger each day world wide.
World of Warcraft takes you to a 3D environment in the World of Azeroth. The World is the largest virtual environment ever created. You can explore through deserts, forests, mountains and more. It may take months before you can finish traveling through all of Azeroth. There are of course mounts such as horses, gryphons and other animals that can help you travel through Azeroth.
Along with the great 3D environment you are able to customize your characters looks in the highest of detail ever possibly invented. There are next to an infinite combination of faces, eyes, texture, size, weight, and coloring to choose from. Unlike many other MMORPGs, you're bound to find a twin here and there but the possibilities have gone unlimited with Blizzards character creation.
World of Warcraft consists of 2 feuding realms, the Alliance and the Horde. Each realm may choose from 4 different races. Alliance members may choose Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, and Gnomes while Horde members may choose Orc, Tauren, Troll and Undead. Along with the 8 races there are also 9 classes that you may choose from which are the Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior. Each player also has the ability to choose a profession for their character. A profession is very helpful to the players as it may help them create great armors, weapons, items and other equipments. A player may choose 2 primary professions and as many secondary professions as they like.
Blizzard has been updating World of Warcraft much more than their previous games that required connection to Battle.net. Quests, items, fixes and other great enhances are being added or changed to improve gameplay. Unlike other MMORPGs, the quests of WoW are made to help leveling and is much pleasurable. It is not as repetitive as you are required to kill the same monsters and the constant traveling back and forth to speak to a dozen NPCs.
Like most and all MMORPGs, WoW has their own game economy and ingame shop/auction house. Their currency is based on copper, silver and gold. World of Warcraft gold is most commonly used to purchase weapons, armors, items, skills, spells and traveling. While selling back items to a NPC shop is easy, the returns are unfavorable. Majority of the players would sell off their unwanted items to other players at a highest rate than what the NPCs will offer.
PvP has been by far the most thrilling theme of most MMORPGs. World of Warcraft includes PvP servers and non PvP servers. As Blizzard continues to update the game, their most recent patch included the battle grounds. A zone where the Horde and Alliance comes together and competes. The winner will receive special rewards and methods of increasing their overall character status.
Blizzard has taken ideas from many different games and combined them all into 1. It has yet been by far the most successful MMORPG to this day and still growing rapidly. With a subscriber base of 4.5 million players world wide, I'm sure the game will continue to be popular for over a decade. If you are interested in playing World of Warcraft or already a player and would like more information on the game play visit www.usfine.com
World of Warcraft takes you to a 3D environment in the World of Azeroth. The World is the largest virtual environment ever created. You can explore through deserts, forests, mountains and more. It may take months before you can finish traveling through all of Azeroth. There are of course mounts such as horses, gryphons and other animals that can help you travel through Azeroth.
Along with the great 3D environment you are able to customize your characters looks in the highest of detail ever possibly invented. There are next to an infinite combination of faces, eyes, texture, size, weight, and coloring to choose from. Unlike many other MMORPGs, you're bound to find a twin here and there but the possibilities have gone unlimited with Blizzards character creation.
World of Warcraft consists of 2 feuding realms, the Alliance and the Horde. Each realm may choose from 4 different races. Alliance members may choose Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, and Gnomes while Horde members may choose Orc, Tauren, Troll and Undead. Along with the 8 races there are also 9 classes that you may choose from which are the Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior. Each player also has the ability to choose a profession for their character. A profession is very helpful to the players as it may help them create great armors, weapons, items and other equipments. A player may choose 2 primary professions and as many secondary professions as they like.
Blizzard has been updating World of Warcraft much more than their previous games that required connection to Battle.net. Quests, items, fixes and other great enhances are being added or changed to improve gameplay. Unlike other MMORPGs, the quests of WoW are made to help leveling and is much pleasurable. It is not as repetitive as you are required to kill the same monsters and the constant traveling back and forth to speak to a dozen NPCs.
Like most and all MMORPGs, WoW has their own game economy and ingame shop/auction house. Their currency is based on copper, silver and gold. World of Warcraft gold is most commonly used to purchase weapons, armors, items, skills, spells and traveling. While selling back items to a NPC shop is easy, the returns are unfavorable. Majority of the players would sell off their unwanted items to other players at a highest rate than what the NPCs will offer.
PvP has been by far the most thrilling theme of most MMORPGs. World of Warcraft includes PvP servers and non PvP servers. As Blizzard continues to update the game, their most recent patch included the battle grounds. A zone where the Horde and Alliance comes together and competes. The winner will receive special rewards and methods of increasing their overall character status.
Blizzard has taken ideas from many different games and combined them all into 1. It has yet been by far the most successful MMORPG to this day and still growing rapidly. With a subscriber base of 4.5 million players world wide, I'm sure the game will continue to be popular for over a decade. If you are interested in playing World of Warcraft or already a player and would like more information on the game play visit www.usfine.com
Choosing Your Suitable World of Warcraft Power Leveling
It's very essential to choose one of company which doing Power Leveling business to level for you at the moment, which the situation is more advantaged by player.
There are so many elements contained, which all about the safety of player's account whether it will be banned by Blizzard or illegal action happened when in farming.
First,choosing viable website to level your character
Nowadays, the business in Power Leveling always mainly done by IGE, USFINE, THSALE, and so on, but the price and quantity is very different each other. As the biggest game gold seller, IGE focus on gold sale but with the high price so it can not be the first selection when you requiring Power Leveling service.USFINE is one of new and developing websites, it's being around 1 year, having reasonable price, leveling lvl.60-70 only need $89.99 which is the absolute cheapest price. In addition,USFINE ensure that player's require can prefect done with good service; THSALE is earlier be engaged in gold sells business company, developing speed extraordinary quickness but slow than IGE. Its product online selling is also soundly all-round that also can be a right choice, only the price are a little bit higher than the USFINE generation.
Second, choosing appropriate price
The higher price is not very involving with the high quantity, as extraordinary fierce competition at the moment. We need comparing and choosing seriously, after all, it requiring payment. Generally speaking, to make lv.1-60 is comfortable with $100 - $199. I'd like to choose $158 way for the time only need around 12-14 days. Pay attention to keep communicate with seller, which will make our account safer.
The third, Security is very important
We really concerned is no more then the price and the safety as Blizzard negate the action of Power Leveling, but place notice that the necessary of game development, everything must march! Some situations bother us when the seller are not able to think your account security and safety. It demanded leveler to have extraordinary soundly service, which is the very element when choosing someone level for you.
There are so many elements contained, which all about the safety of player's account whether it will be banned by Blizzard or illegal action happened when in farming.
First,choosing viable website to level your character
Nowadays, the business in Power Leveling always mainly done by IGE, USFINE, THSALE, and so on, but the price and quantity is very different each other. As the biggest game gold seller, IGE focus on gold sale but with the high price so it can not be the first selection when you requiring Power Leveling service.USFINE is one of new and developing websites, it's being around 1 year, having reasonable price, leveling lvl.60-70 only need $89.99 which is the absolute cheapest price. In addition,USFINE ensure that player's require can prefect done with good service; THSALE is earlier be engaged in gold sells business company, developing speed extraordinary quickness but slow than IGE. Its product online selling is also soundly all-round that also can be a right choice, only the price are a little bit higher than the USFINE generation.
Second, choosing appropriate price
The higher price is not very involving with the high quantity, as extraordinary fierce competition at the moment. We need comparing and choosing seriously, after all, it requiring payment. Generally speaking, to make lv.1-60 is comfortable with $100 - $199. I'd like to choose $158 way for the time only need around 12-14 days. Pay attention to keep communicate with seller, which will make our account safer.
The third, Security is very important
We really concerned is no more then the price and the safety as Blizzard negate the action of Power Leveling, but place notice that the necessary of game development, everything must march! Some situations bother us when the seller are not able to think your account security and safety. It demanded leveler to have extraordinary soundly service, which is the very element when choosing someone level for you.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of computer role-playing games (CRPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, the massive multiplayer online role-playing game credited with popularizing the genre in 1997.
As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy world), and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player CRPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.
MMORPGs are very popular throughout the world.Worldwide revenues for MMORPGs exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005, and Western revenues exceeded one billion USD in 2006.
Common features
Although modern MMORPGs sometimes differ dramatically from their antecedents, many of them share some basic characteristics. These include common themes, some form of progression, social interaction within the game, in-game culture, and system architecture. Not all MMORGPS are like that though some may have no chat but you are able to interact with others.
Themes
The majority of popular MMORPGs are based on traditional fantasy themes, often occurring in an in-game universe comparable to that of Dungeons & Dragons.Some employ hybrid themes that either merge or substitute fantasy elements with those of science fiction, sword and sorcery, or crime fiction. Still others use more obscure themes, including American comic books, the occult, and other recognizable literary genres.Often these elements are developed using similar tasks and scenarios involving quests, monsters, and loot. As the MMORPG genre matures, and the search for new consumer niches continues, this variety can only be expected to diversify.
Progression
A highly progressed character from EverQuest 2, with mount.
In nearly all MMORPGs, the development of the player's character is a primary goal. Many titles feature a character progression system in which players earn experience points for their actions and use those points to reach character "levels", which makes them better at whatever they do. Traditionally, combat with monsters and completing quests for NPCs, either alone or in groups, is the primary way to earn experience points. The accumulation of wealth (including combat-useful items) is also a way to progress in many titles, and again, this is traditionally best accomplished via combat. The cycle produced by these conditions, combat leading to new items allowing for more combat with no change in gameplay, is sometimes pejoratively referred to as the level treadmill,or 'grinding'. The role-playing game Progress Quest was created as a parody of this trend.
Also traditional in the genre is the eventual demand on players to team up with others in order to progress at the optimal rate. This sometimes forces players to change their real-world schedules in order to "keep up" within the game-world. Though some titles recognize this trend as a problem and provide ways to progress within short, unscheduled periods of time, this is still widely criticized of games in the genre.
Social Interaction
MMORPGs always allow players to communicate with one another. Depending on the other interactions allowed by the game, other social expectations will be present.
Many MMORPGs exploit their players' social skills and offer support for in-game guilds or clans (though these will usually form whether the game supports them or not). As a result, many players will find themselves as either a member or a leader of such a group after playing an MMORPG for some time. These organizations will likely have further expectations for their members (such as intra-guild assistance).
Even if players never join a formal group, they are still usually expected to be a part of a small team during game play, and will probably be expected to carry out a specialized role. In combat-based MMORPGs, usual roles include the "tank", a character who absorbs enemy blows and protects other members of the team, the "healer", a character responsible for keeping up the health of the party, the "DPS (Damage Per Second)," a character specializing in inflicting damage, and sometimes the "CC (Crowd Control)," a character who temporarily controls the opponent, such as the "NPC" (Non-Player Character), and making the opponent lose its control of actions and abilities. Other common roles include being a dedicated "buffer" or "debuffer", using abilities that affect the team or the opponents in other ways. Any given MMORPG might allow players to take on all of these roles, additional hybrid roles, or none of them. Despite the variability, some players might enjoy one role over others and continue to play it through many different MMORPG titles.
Some MMORPGs also may expect players to roleplay their characters – that is, to speak and act in the way their character would act, even if it means shying away from other goals such as wealth or experience. However, as this behavior is far from being the norm, most MMORPG players never actually play the roles of their characters. Still, MMORPGs may offer "RP-only" servers for those who wish to immerse themselves in the game in this way.
MMORPG's generally have Game Moderators or Game Masters (frequently abbreviated to GM), which may be paid employees or unpaid volunteers who attempt to supervise the world. Some GMs may have additional access to features and information related to the game that are not available to other players and roles.
Culture
Since MMORPGs have so many elements in common, and those elements are experienced by so many people, a common culture of MMORPGs has developed which exists in addition to the culture present within any given game. For example, since MMORPGs often feature many different character "classes", the games must be balanced in order to be fair to all players, and this has led players of many games to expect "Buffing" or "De-Buffing", which is a term describing the weakening or strengthening of a subset of players, respectively.
As another example, in many older MMORPGs the fastest way to progress was simply by killing the same monsters over and over again, and as this is still common in the genre all MMORPG players know the process as "grinding". The importance of grinding in MMORPGs, and how much "fun" it contributes to the experience, is constantly debated.
MMORPG addiction, which has been a source of concern for parents, also affects the culture. Some players might look down on those who invest huge amounts of time into a game, while others might scorn those who can't put in the time to "play properly."
Some players have also jokingly viewed real life as an MMORPG.
System architecture
Most MMORPGs are deployed using a client-server system architecture. The software that generates and persists the "world" runs continuously on a server, and players connect to it via client software. The client software may provide access to the entire playing world, or further 'expansions' may be required to be purchased to allow access to certain areas of the game. Everquest and World of Warcraft are two examples of games that use such a format. Players generally must purchase the client software for a one-time fee, although an increasing trend is for MMORPGs to work using pre-existing "thin" clients, such as a web browser.
Some MMORPGs require payment of a monthly subscription to play. By nature, "massively multiplayer" games are always online, and most require some sort of continuous revenue (such as monthly subscriptions and advertisements) for maintenance and development.
Depending on the number of players and the system architecture, a MMORPG might actually be run on multiple separate servers, each representing an independent world, where players from one server cannot interact with those from another. In many MMORPGs the number of players in one world is often limited to around a few thousands, but a notable example of the opposite is EVE Online which accommodated around 200,000 players in the same world as of August 2007 and 41,690 users online in December 2007. Some games allow characters to appear on any world, but not simultaneously, others limit each character to the world in which it was created.
History
MUD, an early multi-user roleplaying game
Although MMORPGs, as defined today, have only existed since the early 1990s, all MMORPGs can trace a lineage back to the earliest multi-user games which started appearing in the late 1970s. The first of these was Mazewar, though more would soon be developed for the PLATO system. 1984 saw a Roguelike (semi-graphical) multi-user game, called Islands of Kesmai. The first "truly" graphical multi-user RPG was Neverwinter Nights, which was delivered through America Online in 1991 and was personally championed by AOL President Steve Case. Other early proprietary graphical MMORPGs include three on The Sierra Network: The Shadow of Yserbius in 1992, The Fates of Twinion in 1993, and The Ruins of Cawdor in 1995.
When NSFNET restrictions were lifted in 1995, the Internet was opened up to developers, which allowed for the first really "massive" titles. The first success after this point was Meridian 59, which also featured first-person 3D graphics, although The Realm Online appeared nearly simultaneously and may be credited with bringing the genre to a wider player-base.Ultima Online, released in 1997, may be credited with first popularizing the genre, though Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds was primarily responsible for mainstream attention throughout Asia which was released in 1996, about a year earlier than Ultima Online. It was EverQuest that brought MMORPGs to the mainstream in the West.
These early titles' financial success has ensured competition in the genre since that time. MMORPG titles now exist on consoles and in new settings, and their players enjoy higher-quality gameplay. The current market for MMORPGs has Blizzard's World of Warcraft dominating as the largest pay-to-play MMORPG, though an additional market exists for free-to-play MMORPGs, which are supported by advertising and purchases of in-game items. One exception is Guild Wars, which avoids competition with other MMORPGs by only requiring the initial purchase of the game to play. Though other titles use this pay-structure, Guild Wars remains the only highly popular game of this type.
Psychology
Since the interactions between MMORPG players are real, even if the environments are not, psychologists and sociologists are able to use MMORPGs as tools for academic research. Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist, has conducted interviews with computer users including game-players. Turkle found that many people have expanded their emotional range by exploring the many different roles (including gender identities) that MMORPGs allow a person to explore.
Nick Yee has surveyed more than 35,000 MMORPG players over the past few years, focusing on psychological and sociological aspects of these games. Recent findings included that 15% of players become a guild-leader at one time or another, but most generally find the job tough and thankless; and that players spend a considerable amount of time (often a third of their total time investment) doing things that are directly-related to, but outside of, the game itself.
Many players report that the emotions they feel while playing an MMORPG are very strong, to the extent that 8.7% of male and 23.2% of female players in a statistical study have had an online wedding. Other researchers have found that the enjoyment of a game is directly related to the social organization of a game, ranging from brief encounters between players to highly organized play in structured groups.
Richard Bartle has classified multiplayer RPG-players into four primary psychological groups. His classifications were then expanded upon by Erwin Andreasen, who developed the concept into the thirty-question Bartle Test that helps players determine which category they are associated with. With over 200,000 test responses as of 2006, this is perhaps the largest ongoing survey of multiplayer game players.
In World of Warcraft, a programming glitch attracted the attention of psychologists and epidemiologists across North America, when the "Corrupted Blood" ability of a monster began to spread unintentionally into the wider game world. The Center for Disease Control used the incident as a research model to chart both the progression of a disease, and the potential human response to large-scale epidemic infection.
Economics
A user browsing the market for items in EVE Online
Many MMORPGs feature living economies, as virtual items and currency have to be gained through play and have definite value for players. Such a virtual economy can be analyzed (using data logged by the game) and has value in economic research; more significantly, these "virtual" economies can have an impact on the economies of the real world.
One of the early researchers of MMORPGs was Edward Castronova, who demonstrated that a supply-and-demand market exists for virtual items and that it crosses over with the real world. This crossover has some requirements of the game:
- The ability for players to sell an item to each other for in-game (virtual) currency.
- Bartering for items between players for items of similar value.
- The purchase of in-game items for real-world currency.
- Exchanges of real-world currencies for virtual currencies.
- The creation of meta-currencies such as DKP, or Dragon Kill Points, to distribute in-game rewards.
The idea of attaching real-world value to "virtual" items has had a profound effect on players and the game industry, and even the courts. Castronova's first study in 2002 found that a highly liquid (if illegal) currency market existed, with the value of Everquest's in-game currency exceeding that of the Japanese yen. Some people even make a living by working these virtual economies; these people are often referred to as gold farmers, and may be employed in game sweatshops.
Game publishers usually prohibit the exchange of real-world money for virtual goods. However, a number of products actively promote the idea of linking (and directly profiting from) an exchange. Some players of Second Life have generated revenues in excess of $100,000. However, in the case of Entropia Universe, the virtual economy and the real-world economy are directly linked. This means that real money can be deposited for game money and vice versa. Real-world items have also been sold for game money in Entropia.
Some of the issues confronting online economies include:
- The use of "bots" or automated programs, that assist some players in accumulating in-game wealth to the disadvantage of other players.
- The use of unsanctioned auction sites, which has led publishers to seek legal remedies to prevent their use based on intellectual-property claims.
- The emergence of virtual crime, which can take the form of both fraud against the player or publisher of an online game, and even real-life acts of violence stemming from in-game transactions.
Linking real-world and virtual economies is rare in MMORPGs, as it is generally believed to be detrimental to gameplay (see RuneScape RWT above). If real-world wealth can be used to obtain greater, more immediate rewards than skillful gameplay, the incentive for strategic roleplay and real game involvement is diminished. It could also easily lead to a skewed hierarchy where richer players gain better items, allowing them to take on stronger opponents and level up more quickly than less wealthy but more committed players.
Development
The cost of developing a competitive commercial MMORPG title often exceeds ten million dollars. These projects require multiple disciplines within game design and development such as 3D modeling, 2D art, animation, user interfaces, client/server engineering, database architecture, and network infrastructure.
The front-end (or client) component of a commercial, modern MMORPG features 3D graphics. As with other modern 3D games, the front-end requires expertise with implementing 3D engines, real-time shader techniques and physics simulation. The actual visual content (areas, creatures, characters, weapons, spaceships and so forth) is developed by artists who typically begin with two-dimensional concept art, and later convert these concepts into animated 3D scenes, models and texture maps.
Developing an MMOG server requires expertise with client/server architecture, network protocols, security, and relational database design. MMORPGs include reliable systems for a number of vital tasks. The server must be able to handle and verify a large number of connections, prevent cheating, and apply changes (bug fixes or added content) to the game. A system for recording the game's data at regular intervals, without stopping the game, is also important.
Maintenance requires sufficient servers and bandwidth, and a dedicated support staff. Insufficient resources for maintenance lead to lag and frustration for the players, and can severely damage the reputation of a game, especially at launch. Care must also be taken to ensure that player population remains at an acceptable level by adding or removing servers ("shards"). Peer-to-peer MMORPGs could theoretically work cheaply and efficiently in regulating server load, but practical issues such as asymmetrical network bandwidth and CPU-hungry rendering engines make them a difficult proposition. Additionally, they would probably become vulnerable to other problems including new possibilities for cheating. The hosted infrastructure for a commercial-grade MMORPG requires the deployment of hundreds (or even thousands) of servers. Developing an affordable infrastructure for an online game requires developers to scale to large numbers of players with less hardware and network investment.
In addition, the development team will need to have expertise with the fundamentals of game design: world-building, lore and game mechanics, as well as what makes games fun.
Trends as of 2008
As there are a number of wildly different titles within the genre, and since the genre develops so rapidly, it is difficult to definitively state that the genre is heading in one direction or another. Still, there are a few obvious developments. One of these developments is the raid group quest, or "raid", which is an adventure designed for large groups of players (often twenty or more).
Another is the use of instance dungeons. These are game areas that are "copied" for individual groups, which keeps that group separated from the rest of the game world. This reduces competition, and also has the effect of reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent to and from the server, which reduces lag. World of Warcraft's "raids", mentioned above, are often instance dungeons, as are all of the combat areas in Guild Wars.
Increased amounts of "Player-created content" may be another trend. From the beginning the Ultima Online world included blank 30-page books that players could write in, collect into personal libraries and trade; in later years players have been able to design and build houses from the ground up. Some non-combat-based MMORPGs rely heavily on player-created content, including everything from simple animations to complete buildings using player-created textures and architecture like A Tale in the Desert. However, these games are very different from the far more popular "standard" MMORPGs revolving around combat and limited character trade skills. Player-created content in these games would be in the form of areas to explore, monsters to kill, quests to carry out and specific in-game items to obtain. The Saga of Ryzom was the first of these "standard" MMORPGs to offer players the ability to create this type of content. Again, whether or not this becomes mainstream is anyone's guess.
The use of licenses, common in other video game genres, has also appeared in MMORPGs. 2007 saw the release of The Lord of the Rings Online, based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Other licensed MMORPGs include The Matrix Online, based on the Matrix trilogy of films, Warhammer Online, based on Games Workshops tabletopgame, Star Trek Online, Star Wars Galaxies and Age of Conan. Additionally, several licenses from television have been optioned for MMORPGs, for example Stargate Worlds, which is currently in development. The process is also apparently being applied in reverse, with James Cameron designing an MMORPG that will precede a film (Project 880) to which it is tied.
The introduction of free trials, making titles into shareware, has also become more common, as developers expect that players will become "hooked" by their worlds and begin to pay for them. World of Warcraft, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, Final Fantasy XI, City Of Heroes, Lineage II,City of Villains and EVE Online have all incorporated short free-play periods with the creation of game accounts, while others, like Anarchy Online, RuneScape, RF Online and Rappelz KAL Online have unlimited free-o-play periods, though with caveats; these titles may display in-game advertisements to non-paying customers, or restrict some content. In an attempt to make players pay for the game, most MMORPG's give distinct advantages to those who pay, including better armor and weapons.
Another trend that has shown great presence in MMORPGs is "player-driven" gameplay. Player-driven gameplay relies on the players themselves for events and wars, instead of having these things come from non-player characters (NPCs). Although all MMORPGs try to maximize player interactions, as it provides immersion, some take the concept to an extreme. One example is Shadowbane, which provides neither quests nor dungeons, and instead has players enlisting each other to control land, properties, provinces, and nations.
Non-corporate development
Though the vast majority of MMORPGs are produced by companies, many small teams of programmers and artists have attempted to contribute to the genre. As shown above, the average MMORPG development project requires enormous investments of time and money, and running the game can be a long-term commitment. As a result, non-corporate (or independent, or "indie") development of MMORPGs is less common compared with other genres. Still, many independent MMORPGs do exist, representing a wide spectrum of genres, gameplay types, and revenue systems.
Some independent MMORPG projects are completely open source, while others like PlaneShift and Minions of Mirth feature proprietary content made with an open-source game engine. The developers of Endless Online have also released development information with details about their coding.
The WorldForge project has been active since 1998 and formed a community of independent developers who are working on creating framework for a number of open-source MMORPGs. The Multiverse Network is also creating a network and platform specifically for independent MMOG developers. The Torque MMO Kit can be used to create massive multiplayer online roleplaying games and is intended for indie developers who can't afford or don't want to pay for expensive engines.
References in popular culture
MMORPGs were at the center of the plot of the Make Love, Not Warcraft episode of the Comedy Central TV series South Park, the Marge Gamer episode of the Fox TV series The Simpsons, the Dungeons and Wagons episode of American Dad!, and the Primacy episode of the CBS TV series NUMB3RS (Season 4, episode 7).
Also, the main plot of the episode Virtu-Ron of the Disney Channel series Kim Possible focused around an MMORPG called EverLot, which was most likely a parody of EverQuest.
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