Thoughts on Powerleveling..

“Level 1 – 60 in 20 days guaranteed! Only $XXX!”

I’m sure these ads look familiar. You seem them on blogs and WoW-related sites. How many of us have used such services? Some Wow players despite it while others are active users.

Sites such as the The Unknown Gamer level your account as a service, and I see no reason as to why someone should be penalized for using such a service. If I want my to skip some of the boring, early levels of the game and get right into the later game action, I shouldn’t be penalized for using a power-leveling service.

Though others would argue it to be ridiculous to pay for a game and pay someone else to play it. Such is the controversy associated with power-leveling in WoW. Furthermore, there is tons of basic knowledge and strategy to the game that only game play experience would provide. Power-leveling overlooks that for first time players.

On the other hand, at the higher levels, it takes an incredible amount of time to just go up a few levels. And what if I want another rogue? Starting a rogue or warrior all over again is entirely out of the question. Leveling from 52 – 57 is ridiculously hard, and I’d prefer to have no part of it. I shouldn’t have to bother of leveling just because I’m on a new realm.

Is Power-leveling for WoW worth the risk of Blizzard or suspending your account? When might it be worth the risk?

Posted byMarcat10:40 AM
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Report: 'World of Warcraft' fan site sold for $1 million

Posted by Daniel Terdiman

Editor's Note: This blog originally implied that Wowhead trafficked in the secondary market for World of Warcraft gold. But the company says it does not.

There's a lot of buzz in the World of Warcraft fan site universe this morning, with reports and rumors flying about fan sites being sold, about $1 million sale prices and even scuttlebutt about the uber company in the business of selling WoW gold, IGE, having been sold.

According to a report from the blog, TechSoapBox, the WoW site Wowhead has been sold for $1 million.

Another blog, meanwhile, claims that, in fact, Wowhead was purchased by IGE's ex-parent Affinity Media.

Getting away for a second from the complexities of what it all means in the WoW, that's a pretty impressive number if it's true.

Whether or not Wowhead is involved in the WoW gold business--the company says it's not--it's huge business, and it's changing with the sale of IGE, and other recent developments. I don't know any exact numbers--nor does anyone else since the buying and selling of WoW virtual assets, and those of most online games, is prohibited by the games' publishers. But by some estimates, the so-called secondary market for these virtual assets (of all online games) is approaching $1 billion a year.

And if Wowhead doesn't traffic in gold as it claims, then $1 million for a fan site is a lot of money.

More interesting, perhaps, is the fact that IGE has been sold.

When I was at the Virtual Goods Summit at Stanford yesterday, I had a talk with Brock Pierce, IGE's founder, and he didn't say anything about it. It's true, he was wearing a badge from "Affinity Media," and admittedly, I am not entirely up to speed on the latest news in this industry, but rather than suggesting IGE had been sold and Affinity was getting out of the secondary market business, he hinted he wanted to get out.

Posted byMarcat2:53 PM
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'Warcraft' in China replaces skeletons with healthy humans

HONG KONG — The operators of "World of Warcraft" in China have replaced skeletons with healthy human bodies in the local version of the popular monster-killing online game, a spokesman said Friday, amid a recent government campaign to clean up Internet content.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the changes had sparked a backlash among Chinese players, and that 500 players signed a petition saying they would boycott the game.

James Zhao, spokesman at the Shanghai-based online gaming company The9 Ltd., which is licensed to run "World of Warcraft" in China, said the changes were made to match designs due to be unveiled in an updated version of the game called "The Burning Crusade."

"These are just small operational changes," Zhao said in a phone interview, denying that they were motivated by government policy.

Asked why the skeletons will be replaced by human bodies in the updated version of the game, Zhao said he wouldn't comment on details of the update.

New York-listed The9 launched the new designs amid stricter government scrutiny of Internet content.

President Hu Jintao ordered regulators in January to promote a "healthy online culture" to protect the government's stability, according to state media. In April, Hu was quoted in state media as urging Communist Party leaders to "curb the spread of decadent and backward ideological and cultural material online."

Though China's communist government supports Internet use, it has also set up an extensive surveillance and filtering system to prevent Chinese from accessing material it considers obscene or politically subversive.

The government has banned local authorities from approving new Internet cafes this year.

Xinhua also reported earlier this week that the Chinese update to "World of Warcraft," "The Burning Crusade," is still awaiting government approval. Zhao declined comment.

The report identified a second change to the current game — bones symbolizing dead characters in the game were replaced by graves. Spokesman Zhao said he wasn't aware of any changes other than the bodies for skeletons swap.

Launched by Irvine, Calif.-based Blizzard Entertainment Inc., "World of Warcraft" is the world's most popular online game. In China, it has more than 3.5 million subscribers. Blizzard is a unit of French media company Vivendi SA.

Posted byMarcat11:40 PM
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WoW Film Details Emerge

Representatives from Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures hosted a panel at the BlizzCon gaming festival in Anaheim, Calif., over the weekend in which they discussed the upcoming film based on the hit massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, according to video-game blog Kotaku.

Speaking at the panel were Blizzard's Paul Sams and Chris Metzen, as well as Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull and Chief Creative Officer Jon Jashni. They confirmed that the film will be live-action and will feature some computer-generated environments and effects. The script is still in development, but according to Metzen, the story will take place about a year before the events of World of Warcraft and will be told from the Alliance perspective. There is no director attached yet, but the producers are anticipating a release date in 2009.
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WoW: Lich King Announced

Blizzard Entertainment on Aug. 3 announced plans for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion to the hit massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The news came at the company's BlizzCon gaming festival in Anaheim, Calif., before an audience of more than 8,000 gamers.

Wrath of the Lich King will open the forbidding wasteland of Northrend to exploration, with new levels of power, new dungeons and encounters, a new character profession and the game's first hero class.

Players last visited Northrend in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, when Arthas Menethil fused with the spirit of Ner'zhul to become the Lich King, one of the most powerful beings in the Warcraft universe. He now broods atop the Frozen Throne deep in Icecrown Citadel, clutching the rune blade Frostmourne and marshaling the undead armies of the Scourge. In Wrath of the Lich King, the forces of the Alliance and the Horde will battle the Scourge.Posted byMarcat6:13 AM
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How to Break a World of Warcraft Addiction

The definition of "addiction" is the state of being enslaved to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming (such as narcotics), to such an extent that to discontinue the habit or practice can lead to severe trauma. In other words, you love something so much that you have developed a habit of using it or playing it, to such an extent that not doing so leaves you feeling cranky or nervous; and you are becoming rather inept in other areas of life.

Some experts believe World of Warcraft can be "addictive". Here's a way to break your WoW "addiction".Posted byMarcat5:20 PM
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This was a comment that I thought needed posting...

Anonymous said...

I disagree with Sirg and a bit with the Origial poster.

Leveling in the outlands is easy and doesn't take much time.

The quests in the outlands seem more clustered together. You go to the various forts/bases in any given zone and you grab between 4 and 8 quests at each fort.

Then you go out and do the quests, many of which may overlap.

Additionally, to level up faster, only play when you have rest experience. The best way to maximize this is to play ever other day when leveling up, and then logout when you have used up your "rest-experience" bonus.

If you have ever wondered how those people who brag about hitting lvl xx in 6-13 days. It's because they only play when they have rest experience and they collect all the quests at once to reduce the time running back and forth to the quest givers.

You don't need to know where everything is.

There are very useful mods to help with questing.

I recommend. Doublewide, TomTom, and lightheaded.

These all affect questing in great ways.

Doublewide improves the quest log display. Lightheaded displays everything you need to know about the quest and TomTom (while using Lightheaded) allows you to click on NPC's related to the quest in the quest log and have them show up as a dot on your minimap and regular map.

So no more wasting time looking for quest goals/targets, etc.

Posted byMarcat9:39 PM
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